


Unlikely Office Romances

by IsolaVirtuosa



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Agent Maxwell, Awkwardness, Dr. Yuy, M/M, Preventers (Gundam Wing)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:45:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 56,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12889158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsolaVirtuosa/pseuds/IsolaVirtuosa
Summary: Dr. Heero Yuy, Preventers forensics expert, can’t seem to get over his crush on his former wartime comrade Agent Duo Maxwell.  Duo can’t seem to stand the sight of him… and yet…?





	1. Chapter 1

            “Ugh.”

            I glanced up from playing solitaire on my computer, eyes locking with Andrea Schultz’s, the agent whose desk was next to mine.

            “What’s up?” I asked, tilting my head inquisitively.

            “Yuy incoming,” she muttered, turning back to her own computer and attempting to look busy.

            I tried to shrink down the solitaire window, but it was already too late.

            “Fooling around like usual,” came Heero’s nasally, judgmental voice from behind me.

            I practically jumped out of my seat.  “Christ, Heero!  You’re such a goddamn creep!”

            “Ballistics report from the Myers Case,” he said, dropping a folder on my desk.

            “Great,” I muttered, flipping open the file and taking a look.

            I could feel Heero still hovering behind me.

            I turned slowly.  “What?”                        

            Heero stared at me impassively.

            I shifted.

            “Is the report to your satisfaction?” he asked.

            “Uh, I guess it’s all right,” I said.  “I haven’t exactly read through all…” I paused, flipping through the folder quickly, “eleven pages of it yet.”

            Heero shrugged, continuing to give me his patented creepy stare.

            “Thanks?” I said, wondering if that would be the magic word to get him to go away.

            Heero abruptly turned around and left.

            Andrea let out a sigh of relief.

            “God he’s such a freak,” I muttered, tossing the folder aside and turning back to my solitaire game.

            “I don’t know how you can deal with him,” Andrea said, shaking her head.  I’d seen her stare down a crazy neo-Nazi terrorist holding a bigass shotgun without even blinking an eye, but for some reason she was completely freaked out by the mere presence of all five foot three of Heero Yuy.

            “I mean, yeah he’s a weirdo, but he’s all right I guess,” I said with a shrug.

            “Heero?” Hilde asked, plunking down a coffee cup on my desk.

            “Hilde, my angel!” I gasped, grabbing the cup and staring at it in elation.  It was from the coffee shop down the street, a vast improvement over the sludge in the break room.

            “Yeah, make it up to me by doing some of my paperwork,” Hilde said, gesturing towards the pile of folders on her desk.

            “But I had a really good game of solitaire going…” I protested.

            “Thanks, Schbeiker,” Andrea said, accepting her cup graciously.  “If there’s anything I can help you with, I’d be happy to.”

            “Suck up,” I muttered, taking a gulp of my coffee.

            “You bet your sweet ass,” Andrea said, nuzzling the cup against her cheek.  “The things I would do for good coffee…”

            “Just don’t do them in the office,” Sally commented, breezing through the door.

            Wufei, Trowa, and Agent Daniel Warner shuffled in behind her.

            “How was the big downtown meeting?” I asked, twirling my chair around so I could face the new arrivals.

            “Crap,” Trowa said flatly.

            “Waste of time,” Wufei muttered.

            “We got coffee,” Hilde reminded him.

            “Who cares about some damn coffee?” Wufei growled at her, taking a seat at his desk in the back of the office.

            “Anyone with half a brain,” Sally said, sitting on Wufei’s desk and sipping her coffee.

            “Po!” Wufei raged, gesturing wildly at Sally.

            “Yes, Chang?” Sally asked, keeping her back to him and smiling.

            “My desk is not a place for your posterior!” he snapped.

            “Well I’m the boss and I do what I want,” Sally said with a shrug, taking another casual sip of her coffee.  “Maxwell, Schultz, how were things here?”

            “I played a good round of solitaire, ma’am,” I offered.

            “No phone calls, no emails…” Andrea said.

            “No wonder they won’t give us more funding,” Sally said despondently.  “Where’s a psycho terrorist organization bent on taking over the world when you need one…?”

            “Po, do you even listen to what you’re saying?” Wufei asked in disgust.

            “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Sally said, sliding off of his desk.  “I’ll be in my office conferencing with Une if anyone needs me.”  With that, Sally disappeared into her office and shut the door, leaving the rest of us with a crabby Wufei.

            “What are you all staring at?” Wufei growled.  “Get back to work!”

            “But there is no work…” I pointed out.

            “Did you finish everything for the Myers case to go to court?”

            “Well, I mean mostly kind of sort of…”

            “Finish it.”

            I rolled my eyes, picking up the folder that Heero had brought me as I prepared to enjoy eleven pages of godawful drudgery.

            “Duooo,” Andrea said, spinning around in her chair.  “Wanna go out tonight?”

            “What did you have in mind?” I asked, eyes flicking over the report.

            “Marty’s?” she suggested.

            “We always go to Marty’s,” I said.  I was tired of the same old bar with the same old drinks and the same old people.

            “There’s a new club on the main line,” Hilde interjected.

            “No more tabletop dancing,” I said, waving the suggestion off.

            “That was one time,” Hilde said with narrowed eyes.

            “And now we all have it burned in our retinas,” I said, putting down the file and crossing my arms over my chest.

            “Or burned on our hard drives,” Daniel said, waggling his eyebrows at Hilde.

            Hilde made a disgusted face at him.

            “We could go to Finnegan’s,” Trowa suggested.

            “No way!” everyone chorused.

            “I like Finnegan’s,” Trowa protested.

            “We know!” we all chorused back at him.

            “We could go to that Chinese place,” Andrea put in.  “Their scorpion bowls are really good.”

            “Or that dive bar on Sixth Street.”

            “Or Al Fresco.”

            “Or Red Barn.”

            We ended up going to Marty’s.

            “What’s wrong, Duo?” Trowa asked, coming up behind where I was slumped at the bar.

            “I’m in a rut,” I said with a sigh, taking a dejected drink of my beer.

            “No action?” he asked knowingly.

            “None, nada, zippo.”

            “Poor baby.”

            “If you’re not even going to fake sympathy…”

            “You hate liars.”

            “Whatever, unibang.”

            “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Trowa said, ordering another beer and taking a seat next to me.

            “That’s how this friendship works,” I said, swirling my beer around the glass glumly.

            Trowa’s beer arrived and he took a long drink.

            “Holy shit, Tro,” I said, smacking him on the arm.

            He coughed, putting his beer down and giving me a sour look.  “What is your problem?”

            “Look,” I said, trying to contain my mirth as I pointed to the door.

            Trowa squinted, then let out a snort.

            “The Nerd Squad has arrived,” I declared, watching as Heero, Quatre, and Mariemaia, their fellow lab tech, all trooped into the bar.

            “I didn’t know they drank,” Trowa commented.  His one eye looked amused.

            “Is it even legal for Mariemaia to drink?”

            “She’s in college now.”

            “Christ, that makes me feel old.”

            “You are old.”

            “Twenty-nine is not old.”

            “That’s like 65 in lion years.”

            “Oh my god, Tro, just go and sit with the nerds.”

            “Lions are cool.”

            “Are you drunk already?”

            “I don’t need to be drunk to know that lions are cool.”

            “Uh-huh,” I said, ordering myself another beer.  Clearly I was being left behind in the drinking.

            “Fancy seeing you here.”

            I jumped, my glass clattering on the bar.  “Holy fucking shit, Heero, why do you always do that?”

            “Do what?” he asked, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

            “Sneak up on me.”

            “You must not be very good in the field then,” he said.

            “And you must not be very good at not being an asshole,” I muttered, turning back to face the bar.

            Heero finally got the bartender’s attention and ordered three margaritas.

            “Seriously?” I said.

            “What?” Heero asked, giving me his confused face again.

            “You havin’ a girls’ night or something?” I asked.

            “Well, Mariemaia is a girl…” Heero said, still looking confused.

            “Why do I even talk to you?” I murmured, glancing towards Trowa only to realize that he’d gone back to play pool with Hilde and Andrea.

            Heero continued to stand by me, waiting for his drinks.

            I thought about retreating over to the others, but that seemed cowardly, and I was no coward.  I drank my beer sullenly instead.

            The bartender brought over the three drinks to Heero.  Being Heero, he balanced all three perfectly and turned to carry them back to his table.  “See you around.”

            “Uh, yeah, I guess so,” I said, watching him skulk back to his table.

            Quatre and Mariemaia looked frantic, taking their drinks and quickly bowing their heads together, talking and gesturing wildly.

            “Freaks,” I muttered, pushing my empty glass towards the bartender.  I thought about getting another, but after surveying the bar, I decided it was another hopeless night, and that it was time for me to go home.

            “Hey, kids,” I said, going to lean casually against the pool table.

            “You’re leaving?” Hilde asked.

            “Aw, come on, Duo,” Andrea whined.

            “There’s no one for him to bone,” Hilde said, picking up her pool stick and lining up a shot.

            “The lady has a point,” I said, nodding.

            “There are other things to do at bars besides pick up wayward dudes,” Andrea protested.

            “Oh, Andrea,” I said, shaking my head.  She’d barely been at the Preventers a year, so I could excuse her not knowing how everything she had just said was wrong.

            “You and Heero were looking pretty friendly earlier,” Trowa said casually.

            I shuddered.  “Don’t make jokes like that.”

            “He’s basically your type,” Trowa said.

            “Has a dick and is breathing?” Hilde chimed in.

            “Check and check on both accounts,” Trowa said with a nod.

            “I hate you both,”

            “Really?  Yuy?” Andrea asked, wrinkling your nose.  “He’s such a nerd.”

            “He’s got a great ass, though,” Hilde put in.

            “You can tell because he’s always wearing spandex,” Trowa added helpfully.

            “He’s wearing women’s skinny jeans tonight,” Hilde said, trying to keep a straight face.  “Just how I like it.”

            “Why is Hilde hitting on Yuy?” Daniel asked, appearing behind us.

            “She’s trying to fight Duo for him,” Trowa said.

            Daniel shrugged.  “He’s a good-looking guy, I guess.”

            “I thought you were straight,” Andrea said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

            “If I say that I’m confused and that I need you to come home with me to help clear up my sexuality, would you come?”

            “No.”

            “Then yes, I am very heterosexual, and am merely sharing an objective opinion on the attractiveness of another human being.”

            I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to think about how somewhere behind his unkempt hair and terrible fashion, Heero Yuy actually was pretty attractive.  And during the war…

            What a horrible thought.  I needed to get laid.

            “Yeah, I’m out of here,” I said, waving to everyone.

            “I’ll walk with you,” Trowa offered.

            “Stay,” I said, waving him off, but he followed me anyway.

            We walked down the dark street, spotted with drunks, heading towards the station.

            “Do you want to go to Second Street?” Trowa ventured.

            “Nah, not in the mood,” I said.

            “When are you ever not in the mood for gay bars?” Trowa asked, arching his brow.

            “Just seems pointless,” I said, looking straight ahead as we walked.

            “Is Duo Maxwell looking to settle down?”

            “Is that what this is?”

            “It’s either that, or it’s time for Viagra…”

            “Shit, isn’t there an option C?”

            “Nope.”

            I hesitated.  “Do you ever think about it?”

            “About Viagra?” Trowa asked.  “No, I’m quite virile.”

            I punched him in the shoulder in annoyance.  “Settling down and shit.  Finding a guy.  Buying curtains together or whatever the hell it is that couples do.”

            “That sounds incredibly boring.”

            “Yeah,” I agreed.

            We parted ways at the station, and I went home alone.


	2. Chapter 2

            I watched Duo leave the bar.

            “Go after him,” Mariemaia hissed, giving me a push.

            “No,” I said sullenly, picking up my drink and taking a long sip.

            “After we came all the way here…” Mariemaia said exasperatedly.

            “At least we got these delicious drinks,” Quatre said with a dreamy smile.  He was already completely intoxicated.

            “I can’t believe you just gave up like that!” Mariemaia said with a loud huff.

            “I know an impossible scenario when I see one.”

            Mariemaia crossed her arms over her chest.  “Really?  Asking a coworker to have a drink together is an impossible scenario?”

            “Duo Maxwell is not interested in me,” I said flatly.

            “That’s why you need to make him interested!” she said, slapping her hands on the table.

            “Why are teenage girls so…?” I said, searching for an adequate word.

            “Wonderful?  Beautiful?  Amazing?” Mariemaia suggested through gritted teeth.

            “Aggressive,” I decided.  “Very aggressive.”

            “Maybe you’re just weak.”

            I stared at her.

            “Well, you’re too scared to even ask a guy out.”

            “She has a point,” Quatre agreed, pointing at me with a drunken finger.  “I can’t believe you’re afraid of Duo.”

            “I’m not afraid of Duo.”

            “Then why don’t you ask him out?” Quatre countered, raising his drink to his mouth and missing.

            I was tired of the circular logic, so I didn’t answer.

            Mariemaia sighed, leaning back in her chair and staring at me.

            I stared back, and I could see she was doing her best not to look away.  She was always stubborn like that.

            I was more stubborn.

            After almost five minutes of it, Mariemaia finally gave up with an exasperated huff.  “You’re so stupid.”

            “I’m a certified genius,” I responded.

            “That doesn’t make you any less stupid.”

            “That is a logical fallacy.”

            Mariemaia looked like she still wanted to fight, but then she looked confused.  “Where did Quatre go?”

            We both looked around and immediately spotted Quatre at the bar.

            “Is he getting more drinks?” Mariemaia asked, squinting at him.

            “This mission needs to be aborted,” I said, standing up and going over to collect Quatre.

            Mariemaia sighed and pulled on her coat.  She’d known me long enough to know that she had pushed me as far as she could.

            We all walked towards the station together, Quatre much drunker than I had expected him to be.

            Of course, it had been a very long time since he had gone drinking.  We had our work, and it didn’t leave much time for socializing.

            Also, there was the fact that we were socially inept.  That put a damper on the whole socializing thing.

            This had all been a very stupid idea.

            Quatre leaned against Mariemaia, and she linked arms with him, trying to support him as she limped along.  The function in her legs had been damaged when Dekhim shot her during the Barton uprising, and despite years of physical therapy, she walked with a limp.

            “I want you both to forget about this nonsense,” I finally said as we stood in line waiting for the next train.

            “No way,” Mariemaia said.  “We’re getting you a man.”

            Quatre nodded empathetically, then looked a little queasy.

            “I don’t want a man,” I said, feeling annoyed.

            Mariemaia and Quatre both snorted.

            “This from the guy with a creepy-ass stalker scrapbook,” Mariemaia said.

            I tried to kill her with my eyes.

            “Careful, Maia,” Quatre said, still laughing.  “It’s not a creepy-ass stalker scrapbook, it’s a collection of newspaper clippings about an old comrade.”

            I regretted living with Une and Mariemaia during my university studies.  I also regretted Mariemaia looking under my bed and finding the collection of newspaper clippings about my old comrade Duo Maxwell.  I especially regretted her telling Quatre about it.

            “I think he’s mad at us,” Quatre tried to whisper, his voice coming out very loudly as we got on the train.

            I stood by the door, and Mariemaia and Quatre came to stand near me.

            “You should sit,” I told Mariemaia.

            “I’m fine,” she said, giving me an annoyed look.

            I shrugged.

            “Heero…” she said in her melodramatic teenage way.

            I let my eyes meet hers.

            “I just want you to be happy.”

            “I’m fine,” I said.

            “You’re not fine at all, you’re kind of a creepy weirdo.”

            I frowned.

            “I mean that in a fond way.”

            “That doesn’t make it better.”

            “Well then try leaving your apartment sometimes.”

            “What am I doing right now?”

            “I forced you to come.”

            The train pulled away from the station with a jerk, and Mariemaia caught herself on one of the poles.

            I gave her A Look.

            “Shut up,” she snarled.  Mariemaia wasn’t one to be held back by her disability, and I admired that about her, except when she was being stupid about it.

            Quatre, who had barely been able to walk to the station on his own, now seemed perfectly poised as the train bumped along.  He offered Mariemaia his arm and she gripped it while turning her back to me.

            I needed to get home.

            Quatre got off the train with Mariemaia, saying he’d walk her to her dorm.  I said goodbye, watching them disappear up the stairs as the train sped away.

            I felt like everyone was staring at me.  I turned my glare on, eyes meeting the woman sitting across from me.

            She flinched, looking down and pulling her purse more tightly towards her chest.

            The train finally reached my stop and I hurried up out of the station, heading towards my apartment.  It was a short walk, only five minutes, but my body was thrumming with tension that made the walk seem longer.

            I thought about Duo’s look of disdain when I’d talked to him at the bar.  I thought about him and his friends looking at me and laughing.  I thought about earlier in the day when I’d given him that report at his desk.  How he’d seemed so annoyed and uncomfortable.  Every conversation that we’d had that day kept replaying in my head over and over, making me flinch.  I was so awkward, and everything that came out of my mouth around him was stupid.

            I tried to stop thinking about it, but my thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone.

            I was embarrassed.

            I wondered if Duo knew.  It seemed so obvious, the three of us showing up at the bar we knew he always went to.  The way I’d approached him.  The way I always seemed to get tongue-tied around him.

            It had all started another lifetime ago.  Duo and I had been close during the war, in our own way.  I still irritated him then, but he seemed almost affectionate in his exasperation.  I considered him a friend, even if I never vocalized it.

            Things started to change when Duo was captured and imprisoned.  I was sent to execute him, but found I couldn’t do it.

            As I patched him up after our escape, Duo looked so broken.  I was momentarily distracted from my single-minded focus on the war, reaching out to push Duo’s sweaty bangs from his eyes.

            He flinched, touching the bandages on his ribs that I had just finished taping up.

            I felt strange.  My hand slid from his forehead to his cheek, cupping it gently.  My skin tingled where it touched his.

            Duo’s eyes drifted up to meet mine.

            I didn’t know why I was touching him, but I didn’t take my hand away.

            Duo’s hand slowly inched out, resting on my hip.

            We didn’t speak.

            We didn’t move.

            And then there was a buzzing from the radio, and the moment was over.

            I didn’t think any more about it until after the war, but even then I couldn’t make sense of it.

            We met again during the Barton uprising.  Duo was the same old Duo, and I felt at ease working with him.  But as we prepared to go into enemy territory, he’d stopped me, touching my hand and murmuring, “Be careful.”

            Once again, his skin on mine left a tingling sensation.

            I found myself aimless after the war.  Une approached me about joining the Preventers, but I told her that I was done with fighting.

            She told me that there were other ways to save the world.

            I went to school, first studying engineering, which was incredibly boring, then switching to medical science and forensics.  After graduating, I joined the Preventers as a laboratory technician.  I enjoyed the work and found it fulfilling.

            Sometimes I thought about Duo.

            The former gundam pilots drifted into the Preventers one by one.  First was Wufei after the Barton Uprising, then Quatre and I as lab techs.  Next came Trowa, drawn in by the guerilla skirmishes happening on L3 that led to an attack on his circus.

            Duo was last, joining only two years ago.  His previous job as a bounty hunter frequently brought him in conflict with the Preventers.  Those conflicts usually cost Duo money, and after a fight in Une’s office heard all around Preventer’s headquarters, Duo came out wearing a uniform and badge.

            No one knew how Une had finally tamed Duo, but his entry into the Preventers had been like a hurricane.

            Seeing Duo in the flesh every day cleared up any confusion I had once held about why his touch made my skin tingle and why I kept a collection of newspaper clippings about his bounty hunting exploits under my bed.

            I was attracted to Duo Maxwell.

            It was a confusing thing with which I had no experience.  But I was pleased with an explanation for something that had been plaguing me for years.

            This was attraction.  This was… love.

            Duo barely even glanced my way.

            Whatever had been between us during the war was gone, and now Duo was impossibly far away.

            I put the key into my door, opening it with an immense feeling of relief.

            I was home.

            I yanked off my shirt and tossed it into the hamper in my room, followed by my pants.  Down to only my boxers, I padded over to the cage on the bookshelf.

            “Sorry I’m late, Gray,” I said, handing a treat to the gray hamster.  “Sorry, Brown,” I said, handing another treat to the brown one.

            They just chewed on their sunflower seeds, seemingly unaffected by my lateness.

            I flipped open my laptop and turned it on.  I walked over to the kitchen and poured a glass of water, then returned to the laptop.  I opened the internet browser, squinting into the backlight.  My hand fumbled over the desk for my glasses, shoving them up the bridge of my nose.

            Most of the physical enhancements I had gone through during my training were permanent.  I still had physical strength and endurance beyond the capacity of a normal human being.  I just had terrible eyesight.  Une was always telling me I spent too much time in front of the computer screen.

            I took a drink of water as my tabs loaded.  I needed to rehydrate after the alcohol consumption of the evening.

            The screen was suddenly inundated with messages.  It seemed my latest posting as ‘WingPilot01’ had been very popular on the Gundam 00 message board.

            I settled more comfortably into my chair.


	3. Chapter 3

            Monday morning found me at my desk with nothing to do again.

            “No L3 Brotherhood goons trying to import weapons?” I asked.  “No attempts by the Earth to start an arms race?  No cartel money being used to train child soldiers?”

            “Nope,” Andrea said.

            “What is wrong with the world?!”

            Hilde gave me the look that statement deserved, while Andrea just giggled.

            I sighed, leaning back in my chair and staring at the ceiling.  I’d given up the payday-to-payday, seat-of-your-pants bounty hunting lifestyle to work for the Preventers.

            I wasn’t always so sure it had been the best choice.

            Sure, I was poor and homeless as a bounty hunter, but at least it was interesting.  It wasn’t a mind-numbing, nine-to-five, paper-pushing office job.

            Quatre came bustling in and suddenly made a beeline for me.  “Duo!”

            “Hey, Q, what’s up?” I said, spinning around in my chair to face him.

            “I need some help in the lab.”

            “Isn’t that what you have an intern for?”

            “Maia’s helping Heero get ready to testify tomorrow,” Quatre explained.

            “Oh, the L3 Massacre trial started this week, huh?”

            Quatre nodded.

            “Well I guess I’m not doing anything…” I said, anxious for a reason to get out of the office, but not really looking forward to spending time with Quatre.

            “Great!” Quatre said, grabbing my arm and dragging me along.

            “Have fun!” Andrea called after us with a snort.

            I flipped her off, making it seem playful when it really wasn’t.  Sometimes she got on my nerves.  It was fine for me to call Quatre and Heero out on being dorks.  They were my dorks.  We were brothers in arms when we were barely even big enough to see over our gundam consoles.

            Andrea didn’t know them like that.

            “So what am I helping you with?” I asked warily as we got into the elevator and started descending to the basement.  The Preventers Space Headquarters was actually the ESUN Bureau of Investigation Headquarters, with an office for Preventer agents tucked out of the way on a middle floor of the giant high-rise building.  Our forensics team was shoved in the basement.

            “I want you to test something out for me,” Quatre said, looking gleeful.

            “As long as you didn’t build another Wing Zero down there,” I muttered.

            Quatre laughed.  “Of course not.”

            I shook my head.  Quatre reminded me more and more every day of the mad scientists who had made us what we were.

            We reached the basement, and Quatre swiped his ID through the reader on the door to the lab.  “Welcome!” he said, grandly gesturing me inside.

            The lab was state-of-the-art when it was built 10 years ago, back when the Preventers could actually get funding.  It was still immaculate, as it was well-maintained by Heero, Quatre, and their skeleton crew of lab geeks.

            “Wear this,” Quatre said, grabbing something and sticking it on my head.

            “Don’t mess with the hair-” I tried to protest, but it was already too late.  “Dammit, now I have to walk around with hat-head all day.”

            “And you will still be the most beautiful man in the office,” Quatre said, ushering me through another door.

            “Uh, thanks?” I said, suddenly finding myself standing in an empty room with walls stained every color of the rainbow.

            “Okay, can you just stand there?” Quatre said, checking the clip on a gun he had suddenly pulled out of nowhere.

            “Uh…”

            Quatre clicked off the safety and pointed the gun at me.

            “What exactly am I helping you with again?”

            Quatre grinned and fired the gun in rapid succession.

            “The fuck?!”

            “Did you feel anything?” Quatre asked.

            “Besides my life slipping through the cracks?”

            Quatre nodded, pulling out a clipboard.  “You can take off the helmet now.”

            “Wonderful,” I said, taking it off.  Then I squinted at it.  “Are these… bullets?”

            “They’re blanks,” Quatre waved off my concern.

            “You just shot me in the head five… six times with blanks?!”

            “Yes, but did you _feel_ anything?”

            “Fear?”

            “Your heart rate is barely elevated and your skin pallor is normal.”

            “Seriously, is this what you and Heero do down here all day, try to kill each other?”

            “I told you, they were blanks.  You still haven’t told me if you felt anything.”

            I thought about it.  “No, I thought you missed.”

            “But as you can clearly see, I hit the target all six times.”

            “Could you not refer to my precious head as a target?”

            “I’m sorry, I hit the test apparatus six times,” Quatre said with an apologetic smile.

            ‘Apparatus?’ I mouthed to myself.  Quatre had gotten so weird since the war.  He’d turned the Winner Corporation over to his sisters, and had switched his master’s degree from business to engineering.  After he started at the Preventers, he seemed to devote his life to forensics and inventing weird shit.

            “So you didn’t feel any kind of impact?” Quatre continued, scribbling something on his clipboard.

            “No,” I said, starting to feel impressed.  Like I said, he invented a lot of weird shit, but he was good at it.  “The helmet absorbed the shock?”

            “That was the theory.”

            “Wait, you just shot me in the head six times based on a theory?”

            “This could be really useful in the field,” Quatre said, taking the helmet from me.

            “It’d be good in a firefight,” I agreed.  “No distraction from stray bullets.”

            “It didn’t feel heavy?”

            “No, it was really light,” I said.  “Not like the clunky standard-issues we have now.”

            “Excellent,” Quatre said, writing some kind of final note on the clipboard with a flourish.  “So what do you think about Heero?”

            “Huh?”

            “He’s an attractive guy, yeah?”

            “Huh?”

            “You two would make a cute couple.”

            “Huh?”

            “You should ask him out.”

            “Huuuuh?”

            Quatre grinned at me.

            I looked at him like he was crazy, which he probably was.

            “You’ve never thought about it?”

            “No,” I said incredulously.  Then I paused.  “Well not in recent years…”

            “Ah-HA!” Quatre said triumphantly.

            “I’m not interested, Q.”

            “Don’t be like that.”

            “I’m not being like anything, he’s not my type.”

            “Do you have a type?” Quatre asked, squinting at me.

            I squinted back, trying to figure out if he was asking a genuine question or was reading me on being a slut.

            “What harm could one little date cause?”

            “We work together, so I’m thinking a lot…”

            “Sally and Wufei are together, and that seems to be going fine.”

            “They are not!” I said, getting more and more convinced that Quatre’s grasp on reality was lacking.

            Quatre smirked.

            “They aren’t…”

            He smirked some more.

            “She’s like a hundred years older than him…” I tried.  “And Wu… I’m sorry, I can’t picture him with a woman.  Or a man.  Or even like an animal something.  He’s just so…”

            Quatre was still smirking.

            “What do you know?!” I demanded, because this was the best office gossip since the Coffee Bandit Incident.

            “I know that Wufei’s been staying over Sally’s almost every night lately.”

            “They’re probably working.  They both love work.”

            “And I know they went to Le Poisson Rouge together,” Quatre countered.

            “The fancy French place in the main colony cluster?” I asked.  “Shit, how much do those two get paid?”

            “More than us,” Quatre said, shaking his head.

            “Said the little rich boy.”

            “So do you believe me yet?”

            “You present compelling evidence,” I said, then thought about it.  “Wait, how do you know all this stuff?”

            “I put tracking devices in everyone’s phones.”

            “You what now?”

            “I put tracking devices in everyone’s phones.”

            “Um, okay, but is that even legal?”

            Quatre shrugged.  “Une told me to.”

            “She told you to stalk us all?”

            “The wording was slightly different, but yes, that’s correct.”

            “Uh…” I said.  “I don’t think I’m comfortable with this.”

            “Commander’s orders.”

            “No, seriously, I’m not comfortable with this.”

            Quatre smiled.

            “Soooo, you’re stalking all of us?”

            “I’m not stalking anyone,” Quatre said.  “The commander wants everyone’s movements monitored in case of an emergency.”

            “Well my movements are private,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and feeling violated.

            “Yes, of course,” Quatre said with a pacifying nod.

            “So you’re not tracing me with your little phone lojack?”

            “Oh, no, of course I’m monitoring you,” Quatre said.  “Commander’s orders.”

            “Well, if you’ll excuse me then,” I said, moving towards the door.  “I need to go smash my phone with a hammer a coupla hundred times.”

            “That seems like a waste,” Quatre said, walking with me back to the main door.  “Especially since I’ll just tag you with a tracking device somewhere else.”

            “Q, come on now, does the commander really need to know about everywhere I go?” I tried to reason with him.

            “Yes, in case your status as a Preventer agent or former gundam pilot is compromised,” Quatre reasoned back at me.  “Also, in case of some kind of attack or code red armed uprising where you need to be located immediately.”

            “I knew I signed my life away when I signed that damn Preventer contract,” I muttered.

            “Duo, are you actually mad or are you joking around?” Quatre asked, adjusting his lab coat.  “Sometimes I can’t tell.”

            “Sometimes I can’t tell, either,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.  “But nah, I’m not mad at you.”

            “Good,” he said, smiling his sunny Quatre smile.  “It’s nice to talk to you away from everyone else.”

            “What do you mean?”

            Quatre shrugged, fidgeting with his coat again.

            “What?” I repeated, eyeing him.

            Quatre’s blue eyes met mine.  “It’s just a very us against you kind of feeling.”

            “Agents versus lab geeks?”

            “That about sums it up.”

            “I don’t mean to treat you differently,” I said.  “It’s just… it’s like we’re living in different worlds, ya know?”

            “I guess,” Quatre said.  “But haven’t we always been living in different worlds?  It doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.”

            He was really laying on the guilt trip after admitting to stalking me.  “Yeah, I gotcha,” I said, squeezing his shoulder before letting go.  “Let’s hang out or something next weekend, catch up on shit.”

            “I’d like that,” Quatre said, his smile lighting up his face.  “And Heero can come, too.”

            I eyed him warily.  “Is that what all this is about?  You want to set me up with Heero?”

            “The two are related,” Quatre admitted.  “But I do want to spend more time with you.  I wish the five of us could be closer.”

            I felt a weird twinge inside of me.

            Quatre smiled at me knowingly.

            “Is Saturday night good for you?” I finally asked.  “I have to cover the office during the day, so…?”

            “Yeah, I’ll email you later,” Quatre said agreeably, swiping his card through the door to let me out.

            “Did you have fun with the nerd brigade?” Andrea teased when I came back.

            “Yeah,” I said, booting up my computer.

            “Really?” she asked with a snort.

            I didn’t answer, staring at the loading screen.

            “Who pissed in your cornflakes?” she asked, spinning around in her chair.

            “Schultz, don’t you have anything better to do than behave like a trained circus monkey?” Wufei demanded, suddenly slamming a folder on his desk.

            ‘Trained circus monkey?’ Trowa mouthed to me over our computers.

            I snickered.

            “What part of me looks like a monkey?!” Andrea cried in protest.

            “The part where you’re getting into tomfoolery instead of doing your damn work!” Wufei said.

            ‘Tomfoolery?’ Trowa mouthed to me.

            Hilde was trying to hide her laugh, but I just let it out.

            “Something funny, Maxwell?”

            “Yes, sir, that would be you, sir.”

            “Go alphabetize the storage room!”

            I sighed, standing up with a flimsy salute and dragging myself off to the storage room.  I hadn’t been told to alphabetize the room in weeks, so everything was probably all over the place in there.

            At least it was something to do.

            Wufei had invented ‘alphabetize the storage room’ to punish me, but I mostly just messed around with the copy machine and did art projects to brighten up the office.

            Today I decided to cut out a chain of people holding hands: one with a spiky ponytail, one with two pigtails, both in an endless line.  I glued the printer paper together to make sure the chain would be nice and long before I started cutting.

            “ _What_ are you doing?” Hilde asked with a shake of her head.  She went over to the copy machine, which didn’t fit in our small office and had been relegated to the storage room.

            “Shit, Hil, this is just too good,” I said, rubbing my hands together.  “Quatre said that Sally and Wufei are totally doing the do.”

            “Can you translate that into English?”

            “Porking?  Boning?  Fucking?  Having sexual intercourse?  Copula-”

            “I don’t believe it,” she said, cutting me off because she knew I could go on for hours.

            “It’s true,” I said.  “Hey, did you know that there are tracking devices in our phones?”

            “Yeah,” she said, giving me a weird look.  “It’s in our contracts.”

            “Oh.”

            “So what does that have to do with anything?” she asked, gathering up her copies and getting ready to make her exit.

            “Huh?” I said, concentrating on cutting out the details of Wufei’s balloon pants.  “Oh, right, yeah.  Quatre was all stalking Wu and Sally, and said Wu was spending the night over at Sally’s a helluva lot.”

            “No way,” Hilde protested, but now her interest was piqued.

            I finished cutting out the last part of my doll chain and spread it open with a grin.  “Ta-da.”

            Hilde burst out laughing.  “You are shit, Duo.”

            “Yep,” I agreed.  “Wanna help me color it?”

            “I can deal with these later,” Hilde said, dropping the copies she had made on the floor and sitting next to me.  Hilde would always be my partner-in-crime.

            I grinned, passing her a box of colored pencils, which had been located next to the copier ink.  The room was surprisingly more-or-less alphabetized, so we had plenty of time for the important things.

            Hilde started on the Wufeis, drawing slants for eyes.

            “That’s looking kinda racist,” I informed her.

            Hilde made the next Wufei’s eyes huge and Disney-style with long lashes.

            I almost choked on my laughter.  “Looks just like him,” I finally gasped out.

            “Fucking right it does,” Hilde cackled, getting ready to start on the next Wufei.

            I grinned, turning my focus to my first Sally.  I gave her sunglasses to subtly portray her badassness.

            “Hard at work, I see.”

            We both glanced up at Trowa and waved.

            He studied what we were doing for a long while before finally asking, “Why?”

            “You know they’re getting it on, right?” Hilde asked.

            Trowa leveled her with a ‘you gotta be shitting me’ look.

            Soon the three of us were all busy coloring away.  It was nice, bonding with my two best friends on the floor of the storage closet.

            Until my boss came bursting in, yelling about inappropriate appropriation of Preventer supplies.

            “Wufei and Salllly, sittin’ in a tree,” I cooed, waving the paper chain at him.

            Wufei turned a really interesting shade of red.

            I found myself cleaning all of the toilets in the 30-story ESUN Bureau building for the rest of the day like some indentured janitor.  When was I going to learn that Wufei was my boss, and that pissing him off always had consequences?

            Never, because it was hilarious.

            As I was cleaning my fortieth toilet, I found my mind wandering to my conversation with Quatre.

            After the war, I’d lost touch with everyone except Hilde.  We operated a scrapyard together on L2, but I found myself getting antsy.  I started taking on some bounty hunting jobs, and soon I was away from the yard more than I was actually there.

            Une got in contact with us during the L3 Missile Conspiracy in AC 199, and Hilde and I both helped the Preventers root out the terrorists and bring the incident to a close.

            Hilde decided to stay, selling the scrapyard and wiring me my share of the proceeds.

            I found myself homeless, but not really caring.  I moved with my bounties, living out of cheap hotels.

            I liked it.  I really, genuinely liked it.  Hunting bounties was dangerous.  It could also be mind-numbingly boring in the research stages, but I lived for the hunt.  I liked the trashiness of it.

            We all claimed to want to live peaceful lives after the war, but civilian life wasn’t for any of us.

            Quatre and Heero had come the closest to being civilians, and maybe that’s why I’d found the two of them the hardest to get reacquainted with.  Trowa, Hil, me, and even Wufei were all high speed car chases and gunfire, while those two were quiet evenings at home with a mug of tea.

            I just didn’t see what we had in common anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

            “ _That’s_ what you’re wearing?” Mariemaia asked, aghast.

            “What’s wrong with it?” I asked, glancing down at my jeans and t-shirt.

            “This is your first date with Duo!  Wear something nice!”

            “It’s not a date,” I said, sitting down on the couch next to her.  “It’s dinner.”

            “That’s like the definition of a date.”

            “No, it’s the definition of dinner,” I said, staring her down.  “Quatre’s coming, too.”

            “Well, then it’s a pre-date.”

            “When are you two going to accept that Duo’s not interested in me?”

            “Probably never,” Mariemaia said agreeably.  “Now will you change?”

            “Pick something out,” I said gesturing towards my room.  It was easier to just let her do what she wanted instead of spending the next hour arguing.  Mariemaia was one of the most stubborn people I knew.

            She skipped gleefully off to my room and immediately started making noise.  I could tell she was taking things out of drawers and throwing them all over the place.

            It was my fault for inviting her over.

            Or rather, it was my fault for not rejecting the invitation that she gave to herself to come over before my dinner with Quatre and Duo.

            I sighed and turned on the news.

            She came out after a while, looking frustrated but clutching some of my clothes in her hands.  “Has anyone ever told you that you have no fashion sense?”

            “Yes, you,” I said.  “Many times.”

            “And yet you still haven’t taken the hint.”

            I shrugged.

            “This is the best I could do,” she said, tossing a darker pair of jeans and a different colored t-shirt at me.

            “What’s the difference?” I asked.

            Mariemaia glared at me.

            “You’re a pain in the ass,” I informed her, taking the clothes and going back to my room to change.

            There were clothes everywhere.  I massaged my temple for a moment before closing the door and changing.

            “Okay, you look less like a bum,” Mariemaia said approvingly when I came out.  “Now that hair…”

            “Isn’t it time for you to go home?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

            “And leave you to your own devices?” Mariemaia asked with a snort.  “Fat chance.”

            I turned up the level of my glare, but Mariemaia had long since become resistant to it.  I often imagined that having Mari in my life was what it would be like to have a sister.  A very irritating sister.

            I moved in with Une when Mariemaia was nine, and I lived there for five years during my undergraduate, master’s, and doctorate studies.  It was a strangely domestic arrangement for a former terrorist, a military colonel who had once devoted herself to killing said terrorist, and a child who had been bent on crashing a colony into the earth and killing everyone.

            Mari cooked, I did the dishes, and Une paid the bills.

            Une’s work with the Preventers had her going in early and coming home late.  I found myself being the one to take Mariemaia to school and tuck her into bed at night.  Until she started junior high, anyway, and told me I wasn’t allowed in her room anymore because there were ‘private girl things’ in there that I wasn’t to see.

            Having spent most of my childhood being raised by assassins and mad scientists, the concept of family was something foreign to me.  Yet somehow over those five years, I started thinking of Mari and Une as my family.

            “They domesticated you,” Quatre was fond of saying.

            That’s why Mariemaia could act like my bratty sister.  Because that was basically what she was.

            “Look, I get that you’re going for the naturally tousled look,” Mariemaia said, attacking my hair with a brush.  “But it requires a lot of effort.”

            I stared at her in the bathroom mirror.

            Mariemaia grinned, grabbing some gel and working it through my hair.

            “I don’t own any hair gel,” I said, squinting at the bottle she was using.  My glasses sat on the counter, apparently a hindrance to the hairstyling process.

            “Don’t I know it,” she replied with a said shake of her head.  “I came prepared.”

            “Stop making such a big deal about this.”

            Mariemaia tilted her head to the side, studying my face as she continued to work on my hair.  “What’s wrong, Heero?”

            “Nothing.”

            “…he said but was obviously lying…”

            “It’s nothing,” I reiterated.  “I just…  Stop acting like this is something that it isn’t.”

            “You’re having dinner with the guy you’ve had a crush on for like half your life,” Mariemaia said.  “That’s a big deal in my book.”

            “You’re a teenage girl,” I said dismissively.

            “What the hell is wrong with being a teenage girl?” Mariemaia asked, giving my hair a more-than-necessary yank.  “’Sides, I’m gonna be a bona fide 20-year-old next month.”

            “Do I have to buy you a present?” I asked, happy to change the subject.

            “What?” she asked, giving me a disgusted look.  “Of course you have to buy me a present.”

            “Yeah, but you’re going to be an adult, so…”  
            “So you should buy me an even better and more expensive one than the presents of my childhood.”

            “You gave me a coffee mug for my last birthday.”

            “You love that coffee mug.  It has your beloved Gundam Dynames on it.”

            “Yes, but it could not have cost more than ten credits.”

            “You can’t put a price on that kind of thing!”

            “You stopped making sense about five minutes ago.”

            “Buy me an expensive present, you damn cheapo bastard!” Mariemaia exclaimed, pinching both of my cheeks.

            “What do you want?” I asked, struggling to form the words through the straining of my cheeks.

            “Your love and affection,” she said, dropping her hands from my cheeks and draping her arms over my shoulders.

            I raised an eyebrow at her in the mirror.

            “And a car.”

            “You don’t even have a license…”

            “A pony?”

            “I don’t think they allow ponies to live in dorm rooms.”

            “Well, then buy me a stable to go with it.”

            “Of course, why didn’t I think of that?”

            Mariemaia hugged me tight for a moment, leaving me feeling stiff but not uncomfortable.  Then she let go and gave my hair one last tousle.  “It’ll have to do, I guess.”

            “Stirring words of confidence.”

            “You’re actually pretty good-looking,” Mariemaia said, studying my face.  “You just need a haircut and some moisturizer.  And better clothes.  And-”

            “I have to go now,” I cut in.

            “You’re welcome.”

            “Thanks, Mari,” I said, ushering her out of the bathroom.

            “Why do you always sound sarcastic when you say thank you…?” Mariemaia muttered.

            I picked up my wallet and keys at the door, and we left the apartment together.

            “Have fun,” she said as we parted ways at the station.

            I tried to smile, but I was pretty sure it came out as a grimace.

            Quatre had already gotten a table when I arrived.

            He waved me over excitedly, and I went to sit next to him.

            “Hey, Duo should be here soon,” Quatre said, holding up a basket towards me.  “Breadstick?”

            I shook my head.

            “Did you do something with your hair?” he asked suddenly, squinting at me.  “Is that… product?”

            “Mariemaia.”

            “Ah.”

            And then there he was, brown braid swinging over his shoulder as he strode into the little Italian bistro like he owned it.

            “Duo, over here!” Quatre called with a wave.

            Duo looked over, and when his eyes met Quatre’s, his entire face lit up in a smile.

            No, this was not going to work at all.  Just looking at him made me stupider.  I couldn’t believe it.  Why did Duo have this effect on me?

            “Hey,” Duo said, taking the seat next to me.

            “Hi, Duo, glad you could come,” Quatre said sunnily.

            “Good evening,” I said gruffly.

            “What up, fellas?” Duo asked, seeming completely at ease as he took a breadstick and started chomping on it.

            “I’ve been working on the patent application for my shock-absorbent helmet,” Quatre said cheerfully.

            “Oh, yeah?” Duo said.  “Make sure I get in on some of that dough for being your test dummy.”

            “Oh, no, that was volunteer work.”

            “Why are rich guys so damn tightfisted with their money?”

            “How do you think we stay rich?”

            “By screwing over the little guy?”

            “Well if you feel that strongly, I’ll send you a fruit basket after I’ve made my first million.”

            “A fruit basket?”

            “One of the nice ones, with the cut fruit on the spears, and the chocolate?”

            “Okay, those are pretty good…” Duo hedged.

            I watched the two of them banter back and forth, both with easygoing expressions on their faces, and felt completely left behind.

            “So what’s good here?” Duo asked, picking up the menu and flipping through it.

            “The arrabiata’s nice if you don’t mind a little spice,” Quatre suggested.

            “I’m known to dabble in the spice,” Duo mused, flipping back and forth between two pages.  “All right, yeah, I’m going for it.”

            “I’ll have the same,” Quatre said.

            Then they both turned to look at me.

            I hadn’t even thought about what to order.

            Duo gave me a funny look and turned back to Quatre.

            That was how the entire dinner seemed to go.  Quatre and Duo chatted easily, seeming like long-lost friends, while I sat silently and poked at my lasagna, occasionally taking a perfunctory bite.

            Quatre cast me a concerned look at one point, his eyes probing into my own.

            I just shook him off.

            “This was fun,” Duo told Quatre after we’d split the bill.  “We should do it again.  Soon.”

            Quatre beamed.  “Yes, we should.”

            “Night, guys,” Duo said, walking out ahead of us.

            “Night,” Quatre said.

            “Night…” I echoed, but Duo was already gone.

            Quatre gave me a knowing look as we walked towards his apartment, which was only a couple of minutes from the restaurant.

            “Don’t,” I said.

            “Don’t what?” he asked.

            I leveled him with a glare.

            Quatre, shrugged, looking forward again.

            After we’d gotten up to his apartment, I collapsed into an armchair and crooked my arm over my eyes.

            “What was that?” Quatre finally asked.  “You hardly said a word the whole night.”

            “I told you this was a bad idea.”

            “No, it was a great idea.”

            “He thinks I’m an idiot.”

            “No one thinks you’re an idiot.”

            “Then he thinks that I am socially retarded.”

            “Well, yes, but there’s a grain of truth to that.”

            I groaned.

            “That’s why he likes you,” Quatre said, patting me on the head.

            My groan turned to a growl, and I finally pulled my arm from my eyes to swat his hand away.

            “I know people, Heero, and Duo cares about you,” Quatre continued, undeterred.  “You two had a special bond during the war, and that kind of thing doesn’t just go away.”

            “What about you and Trowa?” I countered.

            “I think if he and I spend some time together, we could find common ground again,” Quatre said confidently.  “Look at me and Duo.”

            “Yeah, you two are getting along grandly,” I muttered.

            “He’s easy to talk to.”

            “For everyone in the world except me.”

            “You’re being a bit overdramatic.”

            “I’ve been spending too much time with Mariemaia.”

            “I think it’s time you tried expanding your social circle,” Quatre suggested.

            “I… socialize…”

            “The internet doesn’t count.”

            I glared at him.

            Quatre just smiled warmly at me and went to pour the tea.

            Even without his scientifically questionable space heart, Quatre knew me better than anyone.  We’d been working for the Preventers together since we were 20, starting out as interns while we worked our way towards our doctorates.

            Une had tried to recruit us as agents, but we both felt the same way.  We were done killing.

            The Preventers could wax as poetic as they wanted about being a peacekeeping organization; all of the agents had a kill count.  They did what had to be done to maintain peace.  Quatre and I couldn’t do that, not anymore.

            Une was the one who suggested we come into the organization in a more behind-the-scenes capacity.  She had to outsource all of her lab work and crime scene analysis to the ESUN Bureau of Investigation, and Une hated dealing with outsiders.  There was always a risk, and she wanted her own in-house lab technicians to help maintain the secrecy of the Preventers.

            Lab work suited Quatre and I.  Quatre liked inventing things, while I liked analyzing things.  We worked well together and enjoyed what we were doing.

            Sometimes I wondered if we were becoming the next generation of mad scientists.

            Sometimes I wondered if that was a good or a bad thing.

            “Your tea’s getting cold,” Quatre scolded me gently.

            I looked down at the china cup in my hands and took a drink from it.

            “Don’t look so depressed,” Quatre said, nudging my knee with a socked foot.

            I offered him a smile.

            “Don’t do that either,” Quatre said with a shudder.

            I sighed.

            “Things will work out, you’ll see,” he said reassuringly.

            I didn’t feel reassured at all.  “What are you planning now?”

            “Nothing,” Quatre said with all the innocence he could muster.

            “I’m going home now,” I said, getting up and putting the empty teacup in the sink.

            “See you at work Monday?”

            “Yeah,” I said, taking my leave.

            It was time to go home to the sanctity of my computer.


	5. Chapter 5

            I glanced down at my phone and snickered at the picture Quatre had sent me of him and Mariemaia.  Quatre had a fake mustache, looking like a B-movie villain as Instructor H.  Mariemaia had a fake nose, mustache, and a stuffed mushroom toy on her head, clearly portraying Professor G.  They were both holding up gunpla models and trying to look serious.

            “Hey, who’s sending you amusing texts?” Trowa asked, elbowing me in the side.  “That’s my gig.”

            I swiveled the barstool I was sitting on, holding my phone up for him to see.

            “…Quatre…?” Trowa said slowly, seeming confused.

            “Yeah, I dunno, we’ve been getting along really good lately.”

            “Okay, but Quatre?”        

            “What’s the matter, Tro, ya jealous?”

            Trowa hesitated.

            I cracked up.  “What, are you afraid Quat’ll steal your important job of making sarcastic comments to me throughout the workday?”

            “It’s a time-honored duty,” Trowa said solemnly, but there was something off in his expression.

            “No, really, what’s up?” I asked, looking into his eyes.

            “Nothing,” Trowa said with a relaxed shrug.

            “Do you still have a crush on Quatre?!” I asked, getting gleeful.

            “When did I ever?” Trowa asked, arching his eyebrow.

            “When we were all lonely teenage boys, and the two of you would sneak off together to blow each other’s flutes.”

            Trowa rolled his eyes, taking a long pull from his beer.  “The only two of us who were crushing on each other were you and Yuy.”

            “You bastard, I can’t believe you would bring that up!”

            “You just accused me of… and I quote, ‘blowing Quatre’s flute’.”

            “Yeah, but I told you that Heero thing in confidence, when I was very inebriated.”

            “And you should have known that I would find the perfect moment to exploit it.”

            “You’re the worst best friend ever.  I’m gonna promote Hilde to Best Friend Number One.”

            “Hey, you do what you gotta do,” Trowa said, seemingly unaffected by my very real and serious threat.

            I sighed loudly, signaling the bartender for another drink.  I turned back to Trowa, eyes suspicious.  “So you’re not harboring latent homosexual feelings for Quatre?”

            “Sorry to disappoint, but no.”

            “Oh, well that’s good, ’cause he’s totally hittin’ it with Dorothy.”

            “That cannot even possibly be true.”

            “I’m dead serious.”

            “Is this like your Wufei and Sally theory, because I gotta say…?”

            “That one’s true, too.  Look, I can’t control the heteros and their weird mating choices, I can only report them to you factually.”

            “Yeah, okay, but… Quatre?  And Dorothy?”

            “That’s Secretary of State Catalonia to you,” I said, snickering as I did every time Dorothy and her damn eyebrows showed up on my television.

            “Who is voting for her?”

            “Apparently Quatre and the entire Maganac Corps, which is like what, ninety percent of the voting population?”

            “There aren’t that many members.  More like seventy… three percent,” Trowa corrected me.

            “The point still stands,” I said, gesturing at him with my drink.  “That woman slept her way into office.”

            “Eergh,” Trowa said with a shudder.  “You’re serious?  Do we need to sit Quatre down and have an intervention?”

            “I already tried,” I said with a sad shake of my head.  “And now every time that I hear she’s gonna be coming to L1 for something, I’m gonna keep picturing their booty call and I won’t be able to sleep for days.”

            “You’re ridiculous.”

            “You say that, but you know I’m right.”

            “Oh my god, Quatre and Dorothy…” Trowa muttered, then kicked back his entire drink.  “Why do you keep telling me these horrible things?”

            “Because I care about you, obviously.”

            “That makes no sense.”

            “Says you, bub.”

            “How many drinks have you had?”

            “Not enough?” I said with a grin that announced I was clearly lying.  I had definitely bypassed my usual self-imposed limit, but lately I just found Marty’s depressing.

            “Yeah, okay, I think it’s time to head home,” Trowa said, taking my beer and drinking it for me.

            “Jerk,” I said.  “Wanna come over and hang?”

            Trowa blinked slowly, then shrugged.  “Yeah, sure.”

            “Cool, man, cool,” I said, wobbling to my feet.  God, I was lame, getting completely plastered like a kid.  I was an _adult_ now.  I was _practically thirty_.

            “Are you going to make it to your place?” Trowa asked, looking back as he led the way to my apartment.

            “Yeah, sure, I’m fine,” I said, laughing for no reason.

            “Maxwell, get it together,” Trowa said with a sad head shake.

            “I’m so together I’m like a puzzle.”

            Trowa didn’t deem that worth responding to.

            I gave my own cleverness a pity laugh and followed Trowa up the stairs.

            My apartment was a swinging bachelor pad, and I was more than happy to welcome Trowa into my home.  If only the damn key would fit in the lock.

            “Give me that,” Trowa said, fingers brushing mine as he took the key away.

            “I was just about to get it…” I protested.

            “No, no you weren’t,” Trowa said, sticking the key in the lock and turning it with ease.

            “Are you a wizard?” I marveled.

            “Yes, Duo, you’ve discovered my secret,” Trowa said, ushering me inside.  “During my free time, I wear a tall hat and carry a magic wand, and I go to Heero and Quatre’s Dungeons and Dragons parties.”

            “Ahahaha, I can see that,” I cackled.  “They’re such nerds,” I added for good measure.

            “Oh, I thought Quatre was your new BFF.”

            “Yeah, my nerdy BFF.”

            “So does the nerdy BFF rank higher or lower than the sexy and witty BFF?”

            “I already told you that Hilde’s number one, HA!”

            “Bantering with you when you’re drunk lacks a certain amount of… finesse…” Trowa mused, sitting me on the couch.

            “Sorry I haven’t been finessing you,” I said, laying my head on the back of the couch.  “What’re all these black spots in my eyes?”

            “How much did you drink?” Trowa asked, leaning in front of me and looking into my eyes, a slight wrinkle between his brows.

            “I might have had a drink or twelve before you came…” I said, trying to count the actual number of drinks I’d had and failing.

            Trowa hovered over me, looking worried.

            “I’m fine, Tro, no worries.”

            “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Trowa said, “but I don’t believe you.”

            “No, really,” I said.  “It’s not like I’ve been binge drinking to fill the sad, lonely void in my heart.”

            Trowa stared at me.

            “Oh, damn, is that what I’ve been doing?” I muttered.  Then I laughed for good measure.  Gotta keep things light.

            “You are in a sad state,” Trowa commented, parking himself next to me and bumping my knee with his.

            We were both quiet for a while.

            “Is this it?” I finally said.

            Trowa turned his eyes on me, calmly waiting for me to continue.

            “I guess I spent my youth just surviving, and now here I am, happy peaceful life and all that shit, but like… is this it?  Is this what life is supposed to be?”

            “What else should it be?” Trowa prodded.

            “I don’t know, but Christ, like is this what we were fighting for?  For people to have really fucking pointless nine to five office jobs where they don’t actually do anything, so they can get paychecks, so they can get drunk and forget about how much their lives suck?”

            Trowa was looking at me funny.

            “What?!” I asked.

            “I think you’re just bored, to be honest,” Trowa said.  “And also having a midlife crisis.”

            I mused that over for a bit.  “Yes… bored… yes!  So simple, yet so deep.”

            “I don’t know about deep,” Trowa said.  “I was just stating the obvious.”

            “No, no, you are way deep, man,” I said, patting him on the back.  “You just get me.”

            “Do I?” Trowa said, and there was something sad in his eyes.

            “Hey, what’s that about?” I asked climbing up his arm and staring into his eyes.  They were really green and kind of bewitching, and I was clearly not sobering up fast enough.

            “What?” Trowa asked, leaning his face away from mine.

            “I wish I could see inside of your brain,” I said mournfully.

            “I’m going to get you some water,” Trowa said, moving to get up.

            “Don’t leave me!” I protested, holding onto his arm.

            “Duo, your kitchen is two feet away.”

            “Troooowaaaa, I’m having an existal… eximastential crisis here.”

            “What do you want me to do about it?”

            “Huh,” I said.  “No clue.”

            Trowa let out a long, exasperated breath.  He stayed seated, and I stayed holding onto his arm.

            “Sorry, Tro, I’m terrible company tonight,” I said, resting my cheek against his shoulder.

            “It’s not really different from any other night,” Trowa said in what I interpreted as a fond way.

            “Ha, burn,” I said, letting my eyes slide shut.  I was suddenly very tired.

            I woke up tucked in my bed with a horrible headache.

            Sitting up made everything in my body go crazy, but lying back down didn’t help.

            And why did my damn phone have to be ringing?

            “Shut uuuuup,” I groaned, flailing my hand around on the nightstand.  I managed to knock the phone on the ground, making me groan louder.

            I didn’t remember getting out of bed to get my phone.  I did remember suddenly realizing that I was lying prone on the floor, with my phone jammed under my back.  I rolled off of it with a quiet string of curses and picked it up to check the missed calls.

            Preventer’s Headquarters.  Damn.

            I hit redial, and held the phone in the general direction of my ear.

            “Maxwell, get down here now.”

            “Huh?” I said.

            “Office.  Now.”

            “But… it’s Sunday… I think?”

            “Oh, well in that case let me call the terrorists and let them know that they need to put their plans on hold because it’s your day off.”

            “Thanks, Wufei, you’re the man.”

            Wufei hung up on me.

            I groaned, crawling across the floor in the general direction of my bathroom.  Surely a shower would solve all of my problems.

            I don’t know how I got to the office.  Trowa had left some hangover meds sitting out on my kitchen counter for me, which probably helped.

            “What did _you do_ last night?” Hilde asked, giving me a onceover as she held the elevator door.

            “Sadly, no one,” I said, sidling up next to her and trying not to fall over.

            “A tragedy,” Hilde said, hitting the door’s close button.

            “The real tragedy is why the hell are we at the office on a perfectly good day off?”

            “Because some stupid kids are fancying themselves revolutionaries, and we have to clean up their mess.”

            “Damn, that sounds bitingly familiar.”

            “Huh?” Hilde said, then gave it some proper thought.  “Ha, yeah.  You guys were so off track with your gundams and your military aggression.”

            “What a clusterfuck that all was, good thing you straightened me out,” I said, holding the open door button as Hilde got out.

            “No one could ever straighten you out,” Hilde said, sounding more serious than the previous tone of the conversation.

            “Was that a gay joke or a subtle jab about me leaving you on L2?”

            “Maybe a little bit of both,” Hilde said breezily, pushing her way into the office.  “Good morning, Preventers.”

            “Good morning!” Andrea chirped, looking perfectly put together.

            I eyed her suspiciously.

            “Coffee?” she offered, pointing to the coffee maker.

            I eyed it with disdain, then shrugged.  “Yes, please.”

            Sally was wheeling the white board out of her office, and all kinds of important-looking things were scribbled on it.  “Are we all here yet?”

            “I sent Barton down to the laboratory to get Winner and Yuy,” Wufei said, rising to his feet from behind his desk.

            “Okay,” Sally said.  “Maxwell, Warner, you look like shit.”

            “But you look gorgeous,” I said, trying to look winsome and charming.

            Sally snorted.

            “I just went to bed an hour ago,” Daniel complained.

            “Poor baby,” Sally said, dropping a huge file on Daniel’s desk, making him jump.  “Maybe you’re in the wrong line of work.”

            Daniel looked confused, tired, and a little bit like he needed a hug.

            “Here ya go,” Andrea said, handing me a mug of coffee.

            “Thanks, darling,” I said, accepting and downing the swill that our office deemed ‘coffee’.

            “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Sally said, watching as Trowa came into the office with Quatre and Heero in tow.  “Let’s get started, then, shall we?”

            Wufei joined Sally at the white board, pointing to some squiggles.  “At 0300 hours, shots were reported at the Vice President’s residence.  Her body was found shortly afterwards.  A group calling themselves Black Freedom posted a video online, taking credit for the assassination.”

            “Black Freedom?” I snorted.

            “Maxwell, a woman is dead,” Wufei snarled at me.

            “It doesn’t make the name any less stupid.”

            “We’re dispatching a team to Earth immediately to investigate the scene,” Sally cut in, knowing that Wufei and I were heading towards yet another argument.  “Maxwell and Schbeiker, that’s you.  Yuy will lead forensics.”

            I was halfway through a high five with Hilde about our free vacation to Earth, not to mention the potential to discharge our firearms on bad guys, when I realized that Heero was coming with us.

            Heero Yuy, dressed in women’s jeans and a lab coat, holding a mug from that godawful sci-fi Gundam series that had aired last year.  Heero Yuy, who wrote short novellas for lab reports and made sure you read every inane detail.  Heero Yuy, who Quatre thought for some inexplicable reason was the man of my dreams.

            I didn’t miss the grin that Quatre shot me at the ‘happy’ news.

            God help me.


	6. Chapter 6

            I was at the spaceport thirty minutes after Wufei concluded our briefing.  Neither Duo nor Hilde had arrived, so I waited awkwardly by myself.

            Quatre kept sending me messages with excessive smiley faces.

            I turned off my phone, crossing my arms over my chest and tapping my foot impatiently.

            Hilde and Duo came strolling in twenty minutes later, arm-in-arm and laughing about something or other.

            Probably me.

            “Hey, Yuy,” Hilde greeted me.  “Let’s go,” she said, pointing in the direction of the shipyard.

            “Fine,” I said, falling into stride with them.

            “You don’t have to be so bitchy about it,” Duo muttered.

            “How am I being bitchy?” I asked, feeling both irritated and nervous.  Duo always brought out the worst in me.

            “You with your sour looks and your crossed arms,” Duo said dismissively, scanning his ID to open the gate to the shipyard.

            I wanted to retort, but Duo was already halfway to the ship.

            Hilde and I scanned our IDs and followed.

            The ride to Earth wasn’t much better.  Duo and Hilde joked and laughed up in the front, while I sat in the back silently.

            I just wanted to be in my lab, autopsying bodies or helping Quatre build new top secret machinery.

            When we landed, we were greeted by the South American branch of the ESUN Bureau of Investigation, and were escorted to Vice President Fernandez’s house.

            “Why does it pay so damn well to be a politician?” Duo muttered as we pulled up to the estate.

            “Kickbacks?  Money laundering?  Extortion?” Hilde suggested

            “Shit, we got into the wrong business.”

            “Most people are already rich before they become politicians,” I said, because they were both clearly missing the point.  “Relena’s salary as Vice Foreign Minister is less than what you make.”

            “Oh, so you have to buy your way into politics?” Duo said with a snort.  “Makes sense.”

            “And then you get even richer with the kickbacks and money laundering and extortion?” Hilde said.

            “Relena isn’t like that,” I said.

            “Relena, Relena, Relena,” Duo said, getting out of the car.  “Not everyone can be as perfect as your precious Relena.”

            “And not every politician is as corrupt and self-serving as you think,” I said, following him up the winding walkway.

            “You two are cute when you argue,” Hilde said, pinching Duo’s cheek.

            Duo grimaced at her.

            “We’re not arguing,” I said, because we weren’t.

            Suarez, our ESUNBI guide, stopped us at the front door, which was crosshatched with yellow crime scene tape.  “We’ve preserved the scene as best as we could,” he said, pulling the door open and breaking the tape.  “That’s our forensics team, now,” he added, gesturing to the van that had just pulled into the driveway.  “They’re at your disposal.”

            “Okay, Yuy, you take the lead,” Hilde said.  “Duo and I want to take a quick look at the crime scene, then we’ll head out.”

            I nodded, feeling more comfortable already.  Collecting fibers, that was something I was good at.

            “Dr. Yuy,” Suarez said, gesturing politely for me to go inside.

            “Don’t touch anything,” I warned, and I could feel Duo rolling his eyes as he came in behind me.

            The body had already been taken to the morgue, so I set the forensics team on scouring the crime scene, a second story bedroom.

            “Looks like it was two perps, one waiting in the garden while the other scaled the wall and climbed in the window,” Hilde reported to me.

            “Okay, I’ll check the garden and the outlying area next,” I said.  I was examining the blood splatter as she talked, only half-listening but sure to recall it later.

            “Duo and I are going to head into town,” Hilde continued.  “Meet us at the office whenever you’ve finished, and call us if you find anything important.”

            “Yes,” I said, waving her off.

            “See ya,” she said, striding out of the room.

            Hilde and I had been working together for years, and I felt at ease with her.  She trusted me to do my job, and I trusted her to do hers.

            When I’d finished at the crime scene, one of the forensic investigators took me to their lab.

            Hilde and Duo came to get me when it had gotten to midnight.  I hadn’t noticed the passage of time.

            “Time to get some sleep, Yuy,” Hilde reprimanded me.

            The three of us went back to the hotel, where we found that Une had reserved two rooms for us.

            “Whaddya say, Hil, just like old times?” Duo asked, waggling his eyebrows at her.

            “You’re a boy and you smell,” Hilde said.  “I’ll take the single.”

            “Hildeeeeee,” Duo gasped out, aghast.

            I was with Duo, I would much rather have had the single room.

            “Well, then I guess it’s just like even older times,” Duo said, giving me an amused look after he got over pouting.

            “Don’t remind me,” I said.

            “Duo is the worst roommate,” Hilde chimed in.

            “Don’t I know it,” I muttered, pressing the elevator button for the eighth floor.

            “In what way am I possibly the worst roommate?!” Duo protested.

            “In every way,” I said flatly.

            Hilde snorted.

            “Hilde Schbeiker, don’t be telling lies,” Duo said, waggling his finger at her.  “We had good times in the scrapyard.”

            “Yeah, real good times,” Hilde said.  “Like how I had to wash all your clothes and your dishes, and clean up your room so we wouldn’t get cockroaches.  Good times.”

            “I’m not _that_ messy.”

            “You used to leave half-eaten sandwiches in my pillow,” I interjected.  “What possible reason would there be to put a sandwich in a pillow?”

            “To save them for later, obviously,” Duo retorted.

            Hilde was cracking up as the elevator door opened.

            “It was _my_ pillow!” I snapped.

            “Yeah, well I didn’t want them in my pillow,” Duo said with a shrug.

            “Holy Christ,” Hilde gasped out, exhausted from laughing.

            I was secretly pleased, despite the annoyed look on my face.  Duo and I had always communicated best by being contrary with one another, and when I stopped with the stuttering and social awkwardness, apparently we still could.

            “Maybe you two should room together since you’re best friends now,” Duo muttered.  “We’re in 810,” he said, pointing to the sign outside of the elevator that directed rooms 801-820 to the left and 821-840 to the right.

            “And I’m conveniently in 811,” Hilde said as we all moved towards the left.

            I stopped mid-step, reaching for Hilde’s arm and yanking her towards me.

            Hilde was going for her gun with her other arm, and Duo already had his out and pointed.

            The sound of gunshots splintered the quiet of the hallway.

            We were all back in the alcove with the elevator, the only cover we could take.

            “Fucking amateurs,” Duo muttered, pulling another gun out of the holster at the small of his back and pressing it into my hands.  “Should’ve waited until we were separated and in our rooms.”

            “I-I can’t take this,” I said, pushing the gun back at him with shaking hands.

            “I can’t babysit you, Yuy,” Duo snarled, whirling around the corner with his gun pointed, firing shots before quickly ducking back behind the safety of the wall.

            “They’re shooting from a room, so they’ve got more cover than us,” Hilde murmured into Duo’s ear.

            They were busy planning strategy while I was shaking like a coward.

            _Count back from ten and reset.  Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one._

            I took a deep breath, my hands steadying.  I hadn’t held a real gun in years, yet it still felt like second nature to me.

            “Okay, on three,” Hilde whispered.

            “Three!” Duo said, and they both rushed into the hall, sliding their bodies into doorways as they fired.

            I was providing cover fire for them, when I felt a prickling at the back of my neck.  I whirled around to face the other end of the hallway, firing off three shots in rapid succession without registering what I was doing.

            The man cried out, dropping to the floor.  His gun clattered from his hand, and a bullet went wild down the hallway.

            There was so much blood.  I knew right away that I’d hit something vital.  The man was dying, a pained gurgling sound coming out of his throat.

            No, not man.  Boy.  He couldn’t have been any older than I was during Operation Meteor.

            I dropped my gun and vomited.

            Duo was suddenly at my side, pulling me back into the alcove.  “Yeah, Wu, we’ve got two shooters, one dead and one incapacitated.  Schbeiker’s been shot, but it’s just a flesh wound, or so she said as she bled all over me.  She’s cuffing the first shooter…  Mm, no one else is making an appearance, but we can’t be sure that they’re the only two…   Yeah, thanks.  I’ll check back in later,” Duo concluded, turning off the radio in his ear.  “Heero, you okay?”

            “Do I look okay?” I asked harshly.

            “Dumb question, I know,” Duo said, rubbing my back as I sat with my head between my knees, trying to breathe deeply.  “But we’re not out of this yet, okay?  So can you be Super Soldier Heero Yuy for a little longer?”

            “No,” I said flatly, but I was already counting again.  _Ten nine eight seven six fivefourthreetwoone._   I took a deep breath, and I was calm.  I shrugged Duo’s hand away from me.

            “You’re good?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Good.  We need to cover Hilde to the elevator,” Duo said, pointing with his finger to the right while he pointed his gun to the left.

            I took watch of the right side, eyes glancing over the crumpled body in my sweep but never lingering on it.

            Hilde whistled at us.

            Duo whistled back.

            Hilde started making her way down the hallway cautiously, the first shooter handcuffed and being pushed along in front of her.

            I kept focused on my side of the hallway, eyes taking in all of the doors.  I could feel Hilde’s approach, knew that she was almost there, just as a door eased open.

            “Don’t move!” I ordered, gun, trained on the doorway.

            It was an older man, and he looked back at me uncertainly.

            “Police business, please stay in your room,” Duo interjected, though he wasn’t looking at the man.  He had the left side to watch.

            Hilde shoved the shooter into the alcove with us and hit the down button of the elevator.

            “What’s going on?” the man questioned.  “I heard the shots, and…”

            “Just stay in your room,” I said, echoing Duo.

            The man nodded, retreating inside and closing the door.

            “Holy fuck, that was unnecessary for my heart,” Duo muttered, backing into the alcove with his gun still trained in front of him.

            “ESUNBI has the first floor secured,” Hilde said, getting into the elevator with the prisoner.

            Duo and I got in, and we started descending.

            I didn’t let myself relax, because I knew if I turned off the machine, I would break down.

            “How’s the arm, Hil?” Duo asked, leaning against the back wall and looking casual.  In actuality, he was watching the now docile prisoner like a hawk.

            “Peachy keen,” Hilde said.

            “You and Heero head to the hospital, and I’ll escort our friend here to the interrogation.”

            “I’m fine-” Hilde started to protest.

            “Get it patched up and meet me at the station.”

            “Are you trying to give me orders?”

            “No one can make you do anything you don’t want to.”

            “True enough,” Hilde agreed, nudging the shooter out the door.

            There was a team of agents waiting for us.  Hilde and I got pushed off towards one car, while Duo and the prisoner went towards another one.

            “You okay?” Hilde asked in the car.

            “Fine,” I said.

            “You seem… different,” she said, eyeing me up and down.

            I met her gaze evenly.

            “Less like a lab geek, more like the savior of the world and setter of his own broken bones,” she said.

            I continued to stare at her.

            Hilde smiled.  “Weirdly, I like you better as a dork.”

            “Hn.”

            Hilde touched my hand lightly, then curled her fingers around mine.

            I took a breath, exhaling it slowly.

            “It’s been a long time since you’ve been in a firefight, huh?”

            “Yeah,” I said quietly.

            “You saved our asses, Yuy,” Hilde said.  “He was already firing when you took him out.”

            I suddenly wanted to vomit again, but I held it in, bile burning up my throat.

            Hilde studied my face, then turned to face forward, squeezing my hand.

            I squeezed back, watching the passing lights of the city.

            At the hospital, Hilde and I both got looked at by the doctor, and I got handed a pill and glass of water for ‘shock’.

            “I’m not in shock,” I muttered, but took the pill anyway.

            One of the ESUNBI agents interviewed me about the shooting, then Hilde emerged from getting her arm bandaged up, and we were off to the police station.

            “Told you they were amateurs,” Duo muttered as we came in.  “He was talking before I’d so much as started my bad cop/bad cop routine.”

            “What, you already broke him?!” Hilde asked.  “Why didn’t you wait for me…?”

            “Sorry, Hil, looks like this case is wrapped up,” Duo said, standing up and leading us through the door we’d just come through.  “He gave up Black Freedom’s headquarters on L2, and basically gave me a detailed biography of every member.  I know everyone’s favorite color, their zodiac signs, whether they’re a lefty or a righty...”

            “I knew I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital,” Hilde muttered.

            “But look at this gorgeous bandage,” Duo said, giving her a charming grin.

            The two of them went back and forth until we reached the hotel.

            “God, is that the sun rising?” Duo muttered, shielding his eyes as he got out of the car.

            “Good work, agents,” the ESUNBI driver said.

            “Yeah, thanks for all the help,” Hilde said.

            “What help?” Duo muttered as the car drove off.  “Anyway, can we just go the hell to sleep already?”

            We went up to the tenth floor where our new rooms were.  The eighth floor was still blocked off with yellow police tape.

            My skin crawled as we got off the elevator.

            Duo opened the door to our room, bidding Hilde goodnight before flopping straight onto one of the double beds.

            I took off my shoes at the door, then went to the bathroom to wash up.

            Duo was fast asleep.

            I pulled out my phone and tried looking at websites and playing some games.  I felt anxious, and it was hard to concentrate.  I tried lying down and closing my eyes, but my eyelids projected an endless series of images.

            I should have gotten more pills at the hospital.

            I sat curled up in the corner of the bed, watching Duo sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

            I snapped awake, sitting up in the unfamiliar bed.  I had probably slept for about two hours, enough to recharge my battery.  I could have kept on sleeping, but something wasn’t right.

            Heero’s blue eyes stared into mine blearily.

            “Have you not slept?” I asked, pushing my bangs out of my eyes.

            “Can’t,” he said.

            I sighed, rolling my feet over the side of the bed.  “I gotta piss.”

            Heero shrugged.

            I went and did my business, splashing some water on my face and peeling off my sweaty uniform shirt.  The hotel staff had kindly moved our bags to the new room, so I dug through mine for some nice lounge clothes.  I changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants, noting how Heero averted his eyes as I did so.

            “So what’s up, Heero?” I asked, leaning against the headboard of my bed.  “You kinda lost it after shooting that guy.”

            Heero looked down at the bed, running the comforter through his fingers anxiously.

            “I know conversation isn’t exactly your forte, but I wanna go back to sleep, and I feel like in order to do that I need you to go to sleep first.”

            “I can leave…”

            “Oh my god, Heero, I’m not kicking you out,” I said, throwing my hands in the air.  “I’m… worried, okay?”

            Heero smiled a little, still not looking at me.

            It was such an awkward expression on his face, and it made me feel weird.

            “You don’t have to worry,” he said quietly.  “I just… I didn’t expect all that to happen.  I didn’t expect that I’d have to confront… that part of me.  I’m fine now.”

            “Then go the fuck to sleep.”

            “Yeah,” he said, sliding down into the bed and closing his eyes.

            “You’re not sleeping,” I announced after five minutes of waiting.

            He cracked an eye open at me.

            “I have to say, I don’t have a clue what’s going on in your head,” I said.  “But I know you’re upset.”

            “Why do you care?” Heero asked, and it was a genuine question.

            “Because I can’t sleep with you staring at me.”

            Heero huffed out a puff of air and turned his back to me.

            “Also, we’re… I don’t know… it’s not like I hate you or anything.  I… you know, care and stuff.”

            Heero snorted.

            “What?” I protested.  “I’m being sincere.”

            Heero finally turned back to me, sitting up.  “Are we supposed to have some kind of heart-to-heart that makes you feel better?”

            “Er, I thought you were the one who was supposed to feel better.”

            “I’m fine.”

            “Christ, you are as annoying as ever,” I said, getting up.  “I’m going to take a shower.  Go buy us some beer.”

            “You want to drink?  It’s not even noon.  And you’re on the job.”

            “I can’t fucking stand you!” I groaned.  “Buy us some damn hot chocolate then.  And get snacks.  Good snacks.  Not carrot sticks or whatever healthy shit you think are snacks but are clearly not.”

            “Is that all?” Heero asked, arching his eyebrow at me.

            “Yes, Heero, that will be all.  Now chop, chop.”

            Heero shrugged, getting out of his own bed.

            I went into the bathroom and took a quick shower.  It felt nice to be clean.  I braided my hair again and pulled back on my sweatpants.

            I returned to the room and grabbed my pillow, tossing it on Heero’s bed.  I shifted the TV so that it was pointing in that direction, then sat down and made sure the angle was right.

            “What are you doing?” Heero asked when he came in, looking uncomfortable.

            “We’re gonna rent a movie,” I said.

            “Don’t pick something awful,” Heero cautioned, sitting on the end of the bed.  He started carefully removing the items he’d purchased from a reusable shopping bag.

            “I have great taste,” I said, frowning at him.  I really wanted to ask if he had brought that shopping bag with him.  It just seemed too ridiculous to bring a reusable shopping bag from L1 to earth on the off chance that he might go grocery shopping.

            Heero’s eyes followed mine to the bag.  “I’m always prepared.”

            I snorted.  “What did you get?” I asked, eyeing the growing pile.  “Oh, my, double chocolate cookies?  Greasy potato chips?  Cream-filled mystery pastry?”

            “All junk food, guaranteed to ruin your health,” Heero said, handing me a package of fried ice cream.  “Eat this before it melts.”

            “Heero, I didn’t know you had it in you,” I said, tearing open the package and taking a bite.

            Heero smiled that creepy little shy smile of his.

            I turned my attention to the TV, flipping through the movie rentals.  “Oh, god…” I groaned.

            “I’ve already seen it,” Heero said, frowning at me.

            “Excellent,” I said, skipping past the _Gundam 00_ movie.

            Heero glared at me.

            I grinned.  “Oh, I gotta call Une,” I said, pulling out my phone.  “You pick a movie,” I added, tossing him the remote.

            Heero looked very confused.

            “Maxwell,” Une greeted me brusquely from behind her desk.

            “Hey, just checking in,” I said.

            “I thought you’d be sleeping.”

            “Heero couldn’t sleep.”

            Heero glared at me.

            “Put Yuy on,” Une said sharply.

            “Sorry, buddy,” I said, passing him the phone.

            Heero looked like a sullen teenager.  It was pretty funny, to be honest.

            “Yuy, do you know how much damn paperwork I have to fill out because you decided to become an agent for a night?”

            “The situation-” Heero started.

            “Do I look like I care?” Une interrupted him.  “What did you get from the body?”

            Heero started doing all his geek babbling, so I took the remote back and on a very strange whim chose the movie.

            “Maxwell!”

            I turned to find the phone aimed in my direction, the screen filled-up with Une’s stern face.  “Yes?”

            “You’re back on at six, wrapping up the loose ends, so get some sleep soon,” she ordered.  “And take care of Yuy!” she snapped, hanging up the phone.

            “Yes, ma’am,” I said, saluting the blank screen.

            Heero frowned at me.

            “Let’s just watch your stupid movie.”

            A confused little wrinkle formed between Heero’s eyebrows.

            I started the movie.

            “I thought…”

            “I’m just gonna sleep through it anyway,” I said, fluffing my pillow and finishing off the fried ice cream.

            Heero looked at me uncertainly, then faced forward where he was still sitting at the edge of the bed.

            “Get comfortable, dork,” I said.

            Heero could not have looked any more uncomfortable.

            “Why do you always have to be so damn awkward around me?” I complained, kicking him lightly in the arm.

            “Don’t touch me with your nasty socks,” Heero said, giving me a withering look.

            “That’s better,” I said with a grin.

            Heero finally came to sit against the headboard with me, holding a warm can of hot cocoa in his hands.  He opened it and took a sip.

            “Now let’s watch a terrible movie about how not to pilot a gundam,” I said, opening the potato chips.

            “Why are you so judgmental?” Heero retorted.  “The whole series is a historically accurate depiction of the lives of the first gundam pilots.”

            “Our great predecessors,” I said, rolling my eyes.  “Why they all so damn pretty?  Gundam pilots aren’t that pretty.  Except for me, obviously.”

            Heero shifted.

            I eyed him for a moment, then decided to be nice.  “Thanks for buying such great snacks.”

            Heero shrugged, sipping his cocoa.

            We watched the movie.

            The main character was basically Heero, which made me laugh almost the whole time.  While Heero was clearly annoyed at first, he slowly started to smile.  I kept up my ongoing commentary, and he seemed to relax.

            I somehow got him under the covers towards the end of the movie, eyes blinking slower and slower.

            When I was sure he was asleep, I gathered up the leftover snacks from the bed and put them on the nightstand.  I transferred my pillow to my bed and crawled back in.  I found myself watching the movie to the end, despite how incredibly stupid I found it, then turned off the TV and easily fell asleep.

            Heero was typing away on his computer when I woke up again.

            I stumbled off to the bathroom, then stumbled back.

            “Whacha doin’?” I asked, tiredly leaning over his shoulder.

            Heero tensed up.

            “Wow, that’s a dead body,” I said, slightly more awake.

            “I’m working,” Heero said, shooing me away.

            I snorted, going over to my bag for a change of clothes.

            Hilde came over with bagels, and we sprawled out on my bed, watching the news and stuffing our faces.

            “Heero, stop with your weird fetishist hobbies and eat with us,” I said.

            Heero turned and glared at me.

            I grinned at him.

            Hilde smacked me in the head.

            “Hey, what was that for?” I complained.

            “Be nice to the nerd,” she reprimanded me.

            “You just called him a nerd.”

            “Oh,” Hilde said, flushing.  “Well, uh…”

            Heero took a bagel from the bag, then went to sit back at his computer.

            “Don’t be like that, Heero,” I complained.

            “I have work to do,” Heero replied.

            Hilde caught my eye and rolled hers.

            I shook my head, adding more cream cheese to my bagel.  “The time-honored Heero Yuy tradition of work before work.”

            We all got into a car after that and set off in our separate directions.  While we’d been sleeping, Une had run a raid on the Black Freedom base on L2.  It looked like everything was tying up neatly.

            Fucking amateurs.

            Hilde and I finished up around midnight again, and headed down to the lab to collect Heero.

            “What are you even investigating?” I asked, leaning over his shoulder.  “The case is pretty much over.”

            “I think it’s far from over,” Heero replied, continuing to poke at the bullet fragment with his tweezers.

            “Why do you always have to be so overdramatic?”

            Heero shooed me away from him.

            “Come on, time to call it quits,” I urged, resting my hand on his shoulder.

            Heero tensed.

            “We’re tired…” I said.

            “Then you go,” he answered.

            “Yeah, but you’ll be all noisy when you come back.”

            Heero shifted uncomfortably.  “W-when am I noisy?”

            I think it was supposed to be a jab, but now he was looking all nervous.  I moved my hand, and he visibly relaxed.  “Well, my finely trained reflexes would wake me up the moment someone came in the room,” I said.

            “I could murder you in your sleep and you wouldn’t notice,” Heero countered, looking at his bullet fragment very intently.

            Hilde burst out laughing.

            “That is a really weird thing to say,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest.  Then I rethought it and put my hand on his shoulder instead.

            Heero tensed.

            “So can we go back to the hotel already?” I requested, leaning in close as I spoke.

            Heero was completely red.

            Oh my god, this was hilarious.

            Hilde smacked me in the head.

            “Woman, why are you so violent?!” I demanded, letting go of Heero to rub the back of my head.

            “Because you’re an asshole,” Hilde responded easily.

            “Trowa is definitely being promoted to Best Friend Number One…”

            “Good, who would want to be best friends with a loser like you?  Anyway, Yuy, come on.  The Commander said you’re not allowed to work overtime.”

            “I’m not-” Heero tried to protest, but Hilde took his bullet fragment away.

            “Let’s go.”

            Heero clearly wanted to protest, but Hilde wasn’t having any of it.

            We ended up back at the hotel.

            “Good night, boys,” Hilde chirped, disappearing into her room across the hall.

            “I’m not tired at all,” I complained, flopping on my bed.

            Heero shrugged and booted up his laptop.

            “Don’t tell me you’re going to keep on working…”

            “I’m going to keep on working.”

            “Christ, Heero, are you married to the job?”

            “Aren’t you?”

            “Nope,” I said.  “Thinking about quitting, anyway.”

            “Oh,” he said in a very quiet voice.

            “What, are you sad about it?” I needled him, sitting up and poking his chair with my foot.

            “It wouldn’t affect me,” Heero said blandly.

            “But you would miss me,” I said, grinning.  I didn’t really have a good reason to be teasing Heero, other than the fact that the case was basically closed and I was bored.  But it was so damn fun to watch him turn red and stuttery.

            “I-I…”

            “You-you what?”

            “I have w-work to do.”

            “You’re off the clock,” I said.  “Let’s get a drink.”

            “I’m working on a theory and-”

            “It can wait until tomorrow.”

            “It’s pretty urgent-”

            “I’ll go get us some drinks and we can drink here then.”

            “I don’t-”

            “Be right back,” I said, disappearing out the door.

            Seeing Heero completely wasted was suddenly my new life goal.


	8. Chapter 8

            I couldn’t concentrate on the computer screen in front of me.  Why did Duo have to be so damn infuriating?  He was supposed to make a few snide comments, and then ignore me like he usually did.  He certainly wasn’t supposed to be out buying alcoholic beverages for us to consume together.  That just didn’t seem like it could possibly end well.

            I imagined myself drunkenly confessing to Duo that I had kept a creepy stalker scrapbook about him since the war.

            I called Quatre.  “Help me.”

            “Heero, it’s the middle of the night…” Quatre complained, looking at me with bleary blue eyes.

            L1 and the Americas were in the same time zone, so of course I already knew that.  Like I would ever not be aware of what time it was in every time zone on earth and in space.

            “Duo’s out buying alcohol,” I hissed at him.

            Quatre immediately got interested.  “Oh?”

            “What should I do?” I asked.  “I should escape.  Yeah, that’s it, if I go out over the balcony-”

            “Relax,” Quatre said, giving me a soothing smile.

            It made me tenser.  “No, but if I climb to the next balcony, there’s a fire escape-”

            “Heero,” Quatre said, giving me a stern look.  “It’s time to be a man.”

            “I am a man, always have been,” I said, staring back at him.  It was true, I had both an X and a Y chromosome.

            “Well you’re acting like a pansy.”

            “I’m not a flower.”

            “Then shut up and have a damn drink with the man you’ve been crushing on since you hit puberty.”

            “I have work to do,” I said, hanging up.  “And no one says ‘crushing’ after the age of twelve,” I muttered to myself.

            “I have returned!” Duo declared, kicking the door open as he walked in laden with booze.

            I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared at him.

            “Quit being a creep,” Duo said, dumping everything on the desk.

            “Careful!” I said, pulling my laptop away from his mess.  “And where did you buy all this in the middle of the night?”

            “Twenty-four hour convenience store next door,” Duo said, opening a can and taking a long drink.

            “Oh,” I said, turning to face my laptop.

            “No, enough with the damn laptop,” Duo said, slamming it shut.

            “What the hell, Maxwell?!” I snapped, yanking my fingers away before they got crushed.

            “Oh, did I make you mad?” Duo asked, grinning at me in a way that made me very uncomfortable.

            “Yes,” I ground out.  “Yes, you did.”

            “Good, now shut up and have a damn drink,” he said, shoving a can into my hand.

            I didn’t know how to react.

            That was Duo Maxwell, always confusing me and keeping me on my toes.  It was probably what attracted me to him, but it also infuriated me.

            “This is an expens-”

            “Drink,” Duo said, fingers wrapping around mine as he pressed the can more firmly into my hand.

            I froze.

            Duo smirked.

            I yanked my hand away, the unopened can clattering to the floor.

            “You need to learn to relax,” Duo said, picking it up and setting it on the desk.

            “Why are you doing this?” I said, turning my back to him.

            “Doing what?” Duo asked with a laugh.  “Making you have fun?”

            “This isn’t fun,” I said quietly.

            “You haven’t even had anything to drink yet.”

            “I have work to do.”

            “Oh my god, you are such a nerd, I can’t even take it,” Duo said, going to sit on his bed.  “Fine, do your work.”

            I was so uncomfortable.  I was also annoyed.  I didn’t want to give into Duo.  I turned around to face him, ready to be angry again.

            He had the saddest look on his face as he sat on the bed, staring into his drink.

            I chewed on my bottom lip.  I reached over, grabbing an unopened can and cracking it open.  “Cheers,” I grumbled, holding it up towards him.

            Duo turned his grin back on, holding his own can towards me.  “Cheers.”

            We drank and ate the leftover snacks from the morning.  Duo put some music on and sang along.

            “You don’t look drunk at all,” Duo complained.

            “I have a high metabolism.”

            “Yeah, but the whole point of this was to see you drunk.”

            I raised an eyebrow at him, but I could feel my cheeks flushing.

            “You never relax around me,” Duo said.  “I just want you to relax.”

            “We have work tomorrow…”

            “Can you give the goody two-shoes bit a rest already?”

            “One of us has to be responsible.”

            “Fine, then I’ll be the responsible one.”

            I snorted.

            “I can be responsible,” Duo said, waving his beer at me.

            “Sure you can.”

            “You used to trust me with your life.”

            My breath caught in my throat.

            Duo was suddenly much closer, staring into my eyes from only a foot away.  “Quatre was right, ya know?” he finally said.

            “A-about what?” I stammered.

            “Shit, you’re really cute when you’re nervous,” Duo said.  “Anyway, I wish the five of us were closer.”

            I was going to die of embarrassment.  What grown man wanted to be called ‘cute’?  I ripped myself from his gaze and downed the rest of my drink.

            “That’s the spirit!” Duo said cheerfully, bouncing up to get me another one.

            I took it, not meeting his eyes.

            “Hey, Heero?” Duo said, still looming over me.

            “What?” I mumbled.

            Duo flicked me in the forehead, and I looked up at him in annoyance.  “I know my overwhelming sexiness is distracting, but you should try actually making eye contact every once and a while.”

            “I don’t have to look at you,” I said, looking away again.

            “Oh?” Duo said, catching my cheek in his hand and tilting my face up.

            I caught his wrist, ready to break it.

            Duo let his arm go slack, and I realized what I’d been about to do.

            “Shit,” I muttered, letting go.  Coming on this assignment had been a horrible idea, and I just wanted to go home.

            “Looks like you’ve still got some reflexes,” Duo said, sitting on the desk and staring down at me.

            “I think I’ll go to bed,” I said, standing up.

            “Do you actually like me, or is that some kind of delusion of Quatre’s?”

            I froze.

            Duo grinned victoriously, like that had been his plan all along.

            I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

            “It’s so weird to watch you go from machine to human,” Duo said, tipping his can back to finish it off.  “If you told me all those years ago that Heero Yuy was a shy boy with a stuttering problem…”

            “Stop being cruel,” I finally said, stalking off to the bathroom.

            “How am I being cruel?” Duo asked with a snort, hopping down from the desk.  He was suddenly standing between me and the bathroom door.  “I was thinking about being quite the opposite, actually.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

            Duo was backing me into the wall.  “I thought I’d throw you a bone.”

            I did not like this at all.

            “You ever been kissed, Heero?”

            Oh, no, no, no, I did not like this.  I was being played with, and it twisted in my gut like a knife.

            “Well?”

            “Yes,” I said, longing to push Duo away.  He was so close now, his arm draped lazily over my head as he leaned in.

            “Shit, really?” he asked, his grin widening.

            “Y-yeah…” I stuttered, looking away from those blue eyes.

            “Too bad,” he murmured, his breath ghosting against my mouth.

            “Stop,” I said, glad that my voice came out steady.  I knew he was just teasing me, but it made me feel anxious and uncomfortable.

            “Stop what?”

            “You’re being cruel,” I reasserted.

            “Come on, Heero, everyone knows I’m a nice guy,” he said, leaning into my line of vision.

            I took a deep breath and pushed him aside.  “No, actually, you’re not.”

            “Oh ho, there’s the old Heero.”

            “There’s not an ‘old Heero’ and a ‘new Heero’, there’s just me,” I informed him.

            “You’ve tried so hard to run away from the past,” Duo said, suddenly yanking me close.  One arm settled around my waist, while his free hand caught my chin.  “Guess what, Heero?  You’re just as shitty as the rest of us.”

            “You’re drunk,” I said, squirming around but not making a significant effort to escape.  It felt good to be touched by Duo, and I was a complete idiot.

            “I probably am,” Duo agreed.  “That doesn’t change anything.  Your hands are just as dirty as mine, so stop prancing around all high and mighty, getting the shakes when someone puts a damn gun in your hand.  You’re not better than me, Heero.  You’ll drop a man to save lives, just the same as me.”

            Now I was starting to feel annoyed.  “I never said I was better than anyone.  It’s not my fault if you take the way I live my life as a censure on the way you live yours.”

            “Who talks like that?” Duo complained, suddenly letting me go and going over to flop on his bed.  “God, and I was thinking of giving you a pity fuck.”

            I was mortified.

            “Ugh, what is wrong with me?” Duo groaned into his pillow.  “I’m so desperate, I’d do anyone.”

            “I’m standing right here,” I said quietly.

            “Perfectly aware.”

            I didn’t know what I was feeling, but my stomach hurt and I just wanted to not be there anymore.

            “Shit, I’m sorry,” Duo said, his eyes suddenly staring into mine.  “I didn’t mean…  Just forget everything I’ve said and done in the last hour, okay?”

            I turned my head to the side.

            “Heeeeero, come on,” Duo protested.  “I know I was being a dick, okay?  Duo Maxwell, the ESUN’s biggest dick.  Well… yeah, okay, well yes, it’s big, but…”

            “Please just leave me alone.”

            “I don’t want you to be mad.”

            “I’m not mad.”

            “You clearly are.”

            “I’m not.”

            “You’re something.”

            “I’m f-fine.”

            “You look like a wounded baby animal or something, you are clearly not fine.”

            I paused at that, giving Duo the look that statement deserved.

            He grinned.

            “I’ll forget everything you said.”

            Duo looked pleased, then frowned.  “No, you won’t.  You never let me live anything down.”

            “Is there anything I can possibly say right now to make you leave me alone?”

            “You could forgive me for being an asshole.”

            “I forgive you for being an asshole.”

            “You’re just saying that, you don’t actually mean it.”

            I wanted to scream.  I turned, pulled up the covers of my bed, and hid under them instead.

            Duo was quiet, and I thought maybe it was finally over.  He shuffled around the room for a bit before turning off the lights.  Then he sat on my bed, the mattress dipping down towards him.

            I did not emerge from my cocoon.

            “I’m sorry for saying shitty things,” Duo said quietly.  “You just… you’re so different now and I don’t know how to deal with you.  You’re so goddamn weird, and then this morning you were kinda vulnerable, and I find it all very confusing.”

            I pushed the covers out of my face, staring at Duo in the dark.  He was a blur, because I wasn’t wearing my glasses and my night vision was terrible.  “What exactly do you find confusing?”

            “You in general.”

            “Oh, I see.”

            “No, no, but it’s like… you used to be quiet before, but it was…  You were quiet because you didn’t need to say anything.  But now I feel like you’re quiet around me because you don’t know what to say?  And you’re nervous?  And that’s weird, Heero, it’s fucking weird.”

            “I’m so sorry for being weird.”

            “Apology accepted,” Duo said.  “So start acting normal.”

            “Good night,” I said, pulling the blankets back over my head.

            “No, hey, wait,” Duo protested, grabbing the blankets and peeling them back.

            “Duo, it’s been a long day and I want to go to sleep.”

            “Yes, but...”

            He was staring at me with big, puppy dog eyes that even my blind self could read clearly in the dark.

            I didn’t know what he wanted from me.  “What?” I finally asked.

            “I… I don’t know.  Good night, Heero.”

            “Good night, Duo.”

            His weight disappeared from the mattress.

            I fell into an uneasy sleep.

            In the morning, Duo just prattled on like usual.

            It was a relief to get back to the lab and continue my line of investigation from the previous day.

            It was, however, not a relief to realize that my line of reasoning had been correct.


	9. Chapter 9

            “I have no idea what you’re saying,” I informed Heero.

            “I have to agree with Duo, say what now?” Hilde said.

            We were all in the lab, staring at a bullet fragment.

            “Black Freedom is just a scapegoat,” Heero said.

            “And the radioactive bullet told you this?” Hilde asked, trying to clarify the shitload of paperwork we were about to have to do.

            “And the space dirt?” I asked.  “I really didn’t get the bit about the space dirt.”

            “I just explained it,” Heero said irritably.  “You’re both perfectly intelligent, or so I’ve been led to believe.”

            “Hey,” I said, making a face at him.

            Our eyes locked, and Heero immediately looked away.

            I shifted uncomfortably.

            Hilde passed the baggie holding the bullet fragment back to Heero.  “Humor us and pretend that we’re not doctors of forensics.”

            “Y-yeah…” Heero said, putting the bullet back on the table.  He looked so awkward, pushing his glasses up his nose and shifting from side-to-side, not saying anything.

            Yep, I had definitely fucked up.

            Hilde gave me a long look, then pointed at the bullet again.  “So you found some kind of space dirt… I don’t know, on the bullet?”

            Heero shifted his attention back to her.  “It’s a kind of igneous rock found on Mars.  I found it in the gunpowder residue.”

            “So someone who has been to Mars came in contact with the gunpowder used in the gun to assassinate the vice president?” Hilde reasoned out slowly.  “What’s the significance?”

            Hearing Hilde say it made something click in my brain.  “The illegal gunrunning on Mars.  Shit.  It’s the L3 Brotherhood, isn’t it?”

            “Wait, what?” Hilde said.  “How do you go from space rock to the biggest terrorist network in the ESUN?”

            “Think about it, Hil,” I said.  “We know the Mars terraformers have been making money on the side by running guns, yeah?  And then the guns used in the L3 Massacre-”

            “-were all illegal guns with the serial numbers shaved off, probably gotten from the terraformers,” Hilde said, shaking her head.

            “I found the same residue in the bullets I analyzed from the Massacre,” Heero said, seeming to relax now that he could talk about all his nerdy science.  “The L3 Brotherhood is definitely getting their arms from Mars.”

            “But other groups could be getting guns from them- shit,” Hilde said, finally putting it all together.  “You said the bullet had traces of radiation.”

            “And who do we know who recently tested a nuke on a little outlying colony of L3?” I said, shaking my head.  The L3 Brotherhood had been quiet the last few months outside of the nuke test.  Not that a nuke test was quiet, but at least they hadn’t mass-murdered any soldiers lately.

            “Fuck,” Hilde said.

            “Fuck,” I agreed.

            “We need to call the commander,” Heero said, and then we were all off, dealing with one of the biggest terrorist crises in the Earth Sphere since… well, us.

            I spent most of my time going through airport footage, watching to see if the L3 Brotherhood leader Aaron Easton made an appearance.  Andrea had tracked him leaving L3 two days before the shooting using a fake passport.  She followed his trail to L1, then couldn’t place him on a flight to earth.

            I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend a day than playing _Where’s Waldo?_ with grainy airport security footage.

            “Ah-HA, gotcha, motherfucker,” I said, hours later.

            “How can you even tell that’s him?” Agent Suarez asked, squinting at the still that I’d taken from the footage.

            “Wearing the same watch as the L1 footage,” I said.

            Suarez didn’t look convinced.

            “He brought the guns to Black Freedom and got their shooter in the VP’s house,” I said, tapping the picture with my pen.

            “But how would he get a gun through airport security?”

            “He came in on a private shuttle,” I said.  “That’s why our agents couldn’t find him getting on a regular flight to earth.”

            “This all seems a bit far-fetched…”

            I bit my tongue and avoided making a nasty comment about the ESUNBI and their unimaginative agents.  It was good to reaffirm that the Preventers were still actually needed in the world.

            Hilde came to collect me from the desk I’d been holed up at all day, an unusually serious look on her face.

            “You talk to Une?” I asked.

            “Yeah, she told us to babysit Yuy for the rest of the week until he’s done with the forensics.”

            “Whaaaat, I wanted to go to L3,” I complained.

            “Trowa’s heading that team up.”

            “Is that why he kept texting me with winky smiley faces all day?”

            “Don’t ask me to interpret the bizarre messages you two send each other.”

            “Man, we’re missing all the action…”

            Hilde held up her arm with the bullet wound.

            “Okay, so we got one shootout, but can you imagine raiding the Brotherhood’s stronghold?”

            Hilde smacked me with her good arm.

            “Ow…”

            “Oh, and by the way,” she said, suddenly grabbing me by the ear and yanking me down so we were eye level.  “What the hell did you do to Yuy?”

            “What?!” I cried.  “Nothing!”

            “Duo Maxwell, you tell me what you did before I rip this ear off,” Hilde growled.  “He asked me to switch rooms with him.  Put that together with you two acting weird this morning…”

            “Oh, that,” I said.  “Can I have my ear back?”

            Hilde gave me a menacing look.

            “It’s not a big deal,” I said.  “I got drunk and kind of… hit on him, I guess?”

            She finally let go of my ear, sputtering with laughter.  “You what?!”

            I tried to smile and make it a joke, but I immediately felt shitty about it.

            She took in my expression and got serious again.  “I know we… we make fun of Heero a lot,” she said, looking uncomfortable.  “I mean, he’s all nerdy and Asperger-y and kind of creepy sometimes, but he’s Heero Yuy.  We wouldn’t be standing here right now if it wasn’t for him.  He saved us.  He saved the world.  He saved me two freaking days ago.  He’s like… superman or something.”

            “I know all this,” I said irritably.  I didn’t want to think about the way I treated Heero and why I did it.

            “Good,” Hilde said.  “Then don’t fuck around with him.  He’s not a random guy at a bar.  And as impenetrable as he seems, he’s… sensitive.  You hurt him, whatever you did.  He’s one of us, and I’ll kick anyone’s ass who hurts one of us, even if it’s you.”

            “I got it already,” I muttered.

            “Good, then fix things with Yuy ’cause I ain’t givin’ up my single room,” Hilde said, shoving me through the lab door.

            “Hey, Schbeiker!” I yelled, but she had closed the door behind me.

            Heero didn’t acknowledge my presence, though his flushed cheeks said it all.

            “Agent Maxwell, hello,” his assistant said, grinning at me.

            “Why hello there,” I said, turning on the Duo Maxwell charm.

            “He’s gay, Ramirez,” Heero said abruptly.

            “Ain’t that always the way?” she said with a sigh.

            “Doesn’t mean I don’t like talking to a pretty girl,” I said, still pouring on the charm because it was easier.

            “And I love flirting with attractive gay men, though it’s usually not on purpose,” Ramirez replied with an easy smile.

            Heero made an annoyed sound, not looking at either of us.

            “And Heero hates any kind of friendly interaction between two people,” I commented.

            “Who’s Heero?” Ramirez asked, squinting at me over the top of her glasses.

            “Huh?” I said.  “Oh, sorry, Dr. Yuy.”

            “Is there a reason you’re here?” Heero asked, still not looking up from whatever inanimate object it was that he was examining.

            “Yeah, it’s past closing time and we’re going back to the hotel.”

            “I’m busy.”

            “Um, okay, but work is over and you can come back in the morning.”

            “I’m in the middle of something.”

            “What about your poor assistant?”

            “I don’t need her.”

            Ramirez flinched at that.

            “Don’t mind him,” I said to her.  “He has a terrible case of asshole-itis.”

            “You’re one to talk,” Heero muttered, staring so intently at whatever was in his hand that he couldn’t possibly be seeing what it actually was.

            “Why don’t you head home for the night?” I suggested to Ramirez.  “Everyone could use a good night’s rest and fresh eyes to start the morning.”

            Ramirez looked uncertainly towards Heero, who was boring holes into the table.

            “Go,” he said quietly.  “You’ve been a lot of help today.  Thank you.”

            “Uh, ’kay…” she said, cleaning up her work area before taking off her gloves.  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dr. Yuy.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Bye, Agent Maxwell,” she said, offering me a forced smile.

            “Bye,” I said, letting my smile reach my eyes.

            Ramirez’s smile brightened, and then she was out the door.

            “She’s cute for a lab geek,” I commented, sauntering over to the examination table to see what Heero had been staring at the whole time.

            It was a bunch of soil samples.

            “This dirt can’t wait until tomorrow?” I asked.

            “No.”

            “And here I thought you were just trying to avoid me.”

            He leveled me with a _look_.

            “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

            Heero returned to staring holes into the dirt.

            I sighed.  “Come on, it’s late.  Hilde’s waiting.”

            “You two can go ahead.”

            “Nuh-uh, no way, Une charged me with babysitting you.”

            “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

            “Okay, first of all she’ll _know_.  She always _knows_.  She’s like one of those psychic Innovators, or whatever.”

            “Did you just make a _Gundam 00_ reference?” Heero asked, eyes finally meeting mine again.

            “You made me watch that stupid movie-”

            “You’re the one who put it on,” Heero said, narrowing his eyes.

            “I was just pandering to you since you were all depressed about discharging a firearm.”

            “I don’t need your fucking pity.”

            I stepped away from him involuntarily.  Heero was scary when he was mad.  It was a quiet anger that burned brighter than any kind of loud outburst.  “I said sorry about that, didn’t I?”

            “Yes, of course, your very sincere apology.”

            “Fine, whatever.  I tried.  Be an asshole,” I said, taking my leave.

            Hilde smacked me when I came back empty-handed, and went to get Heero herself.

            “Good luck,” I muttered.

            Imagine my surprise when Hilde met me at the car with Heero in tow.

            We went back to the hotel in a frosty silence.  I didn’t know what Heero had said to Hilde, but she was legitimately pissed at me now, too.

            Duo Maxwell, public enemy number one.

            When we got to our rooms, Hilde handed Heero her key.  They both got their bags and traded rooms.

            I flopped on my bed tiredly while all that was going on.

            “Get it together, Maxwell,” Hilde said, kicking me in the rump.

            “Ow,” I complained.  “If I beat on you half as much as you beat on me, everyone would be yellin’ about domestic abuse or whatever.”

            “We’re not domestically involved.”

            “We could be,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows suggestively.

            “Oh my god, just stop,” Hilde groaned.  “Flirting is not a good coping mechanism.”

            “What am I supposed to be coping with…?” I asked, squinting at her.

            “You always have to ingratiate yourself with people.  You want everyone to like you.”

            “I don’t feel like any of that is true.”

            “Well it is.”

            “Okay, Dr. Hilde, thank you for your psychoanalysis.”

            “And yet hilariously you don’t care what your friends think of you,” she said, going for my armpit.

            I screeched.  I had to be just about the most ticklish person in the world, and Hilde knew it.  “Devil woman!  Devil woman!” I wailed, trying to defend myself.

            When she thought I’d been sufficiently punished, she stopped.

            I gasped for breath.

            Hilde sat at the head of the bed, and I scooted up to sit next to her.  “He’s not wrong, though.”

            “Who?” I asked, sliding an arm around her.

            Hilde leaned into me, resting her head on my shoulder.  “Heero.”

            “About…?”

            Hilde shifted, quiet for a moment.  “We… we don’t…  I don’t know.”

            “This has been a really enlightening conversation.”

            “Sarcasm is banned for the next ten minutes.”

            “But then how can I say anything at all?”

            “Exactly.”

            I pretended to zip my mouth shut.

            “He really likes you,” she said quietly.  “Don’t think he’s sure of why himself, but he does.  And we all… we treat him and Quatre like a joke.”

            “Hey, Q and I have gotten to be really good friends lately,” I protested.

            “So the ten years of talking shit behind his back don’t count?”

            “I didn’t talk shit,” I complained, getting ready to defend myself.

            “We all did,” Hilde interrupted.  “And we didn’t mean any harm by it, but what does intent matter?”

            I gave her a sullen look.  “Don’t lay your guilt on me.”

            “You’re such a sociopath,” Hilde muttered.  “Do you not feel bad about anything?”

            I blew out a long breath, watching my bangs do a little undulation.  “Have you never heard of Catholic guilt?”

            “You’re not Catholic,” Hilde said, leveling me with a long _look_.

            “I was raised by them, so I get the guilt by association.”

            “Ugh, go away.”

            “Why?”

            Her answer was to push me on the floor.

            “Hil, you need to find more constructive ways of expressing your emotions.”

            “And you need to stop hiding behind your words.”

            I decided to reflect on my actions by not talking to Heero about anything that didn’t pertain to the case.

            Heero responded by not talking, either, but what else was new?

            “You two are buffoons,” Hilde muttered a week into our silent showdown.

            Heero turned to face her, looking perplexed.

            “Yeah, and?” I said, fiddling with my seatbelt.  I couldn’t wait to be off of earth and back to L1.

            “And nothing.  I’m not figuring out your mess for you,” Hilde growled, crossing her arms over her chest.  “So happy we’re leaving tomorrow.”

            “I’m not a buffoon…” Heero murmured in this incredulous tone that made me smile.  He seemed so astonished that someone would ever call him a buffoon.  Even as I was thinking it, his eyes darkened.  “What are you smiling at?”

            “Is it a crime to smile?” I asked, holding my hands up.

            “Yes,” he muttered.

            “Hoo boy.”

            “Buffoons, the both of you,” Hilde groaned.

            “I am a doctor of forensics,” Heero said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

            “More like doctor of social awkwardness,” I commented to the window.

            Hilde smacked me upside the head.

            “Ow, jeez!  Hil, we talked about this.”

            “Yeah, we agreed that I would no longer beat on you if you stopped saying stupid things.  If you’re not gonna hold up your end of the bargain…”

            I grumbled under my breath, and Heero went back to being silent.

            Our flight home was in the afternoon.  I spent my morning summarizing everything for the ESUNBI and doing bullshit paperwork.  Hilde and Heero were already waiting at the spaceport when I arrived.

            “Let’s blow this pop stand,” I said, striding over to the security line.

            It happened so fast that all I could remember was hitting the floor, shots ringing in my ears.


	10. Chapter 10

            I tried to keep the gun steady after I fired, to stay on guard, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

            “Give Duo back his gun,” Hilde said gently, her own gun trained on the fallen body.

            “Give Duo back his beautiful, unbroken nose,” Duo muttered, pushing himself into a standing position and taking the gun from me.  His eyes were alert, searching the perimeter for any other threats while the civilians ran around in a blind panic.

            “Sorry,” I whispered, watching the blood flow freely from his nose and knowing I had caused it by shoving him to the ground.

            “Take cover, Yuy,” Duo said as he and Hilde moved in tandem towards one of the luggage x-ray machines.

            I hesitated, then followed them, staying low.

            “I can’t babysit you right now,” Duo muttered, doing another sweep with his eyes.

            “He just saved your ass,” Hilde growled.  “No babysitting required.”

            “He’s shaking like a freaking leaf.”

            “He already had your gun and was firing before I could draw.  Not that you even noticed the crazed gunwoman trying to kill you.”

            “I would have noticed eventually,” Duo said, stuffing a wad of tissues up his nose.

            “There doesn’t seem to be another gunman,” I said, trying to steady my panicked breathing.

            “Yeah,” Hilde said, settling a hand at the base of my neck.

            It rooted me, helping me to breathe a little deeper.

            “Airport security seems to be doing a bang up job of dealing with the crisis,” Duo commented, watching as the security guards finally came onto the scene, trying to organize the chaos.  “God, they’re gonna cancel all the flights, aren’t they?  We were almost outta here!”

            “You and Yuy go to the medical station, I’ll deal with this,” Hilde said, standing up as a pair of guards approached us.

            Despite her assertion, we wasted about twenty minutes talking to security before Duo finally pulled the tissues out of his nose and bled on them to let him go to medical.

            The rest of the spaceport had been evacuated, and the walk was oddly quiet.

            “What’s wrong?” Duo finally asked, sounding like the words had been dragged from his mouth, kicking and screaming.

            I shook my head.

            “Well if you’re gonna keep freaking out every time you fire a gun, kindly keep your hands off of mine.”

            “I didn’t mean to kill her,” I said, letting the words sit in the silence.

            “She was going to kill us,” Duo replied, tipping his head back as he walked and readjusting his tissues.

            “But I could have just shot the gun out of her hand or-”

            “Then why didn’t you?” Duo interrupted.

            “My body just acts.  I can’t control it.”

            Duo sighed and stepped in front of me, impeding my forward process.  He settled both hands heavily on my shoulders.  “Is that what all your shaking and puking is about?”

            “I kill people on instinct, without a conscious thought,” I said, trying to stay calm.  “These terrorists, they might as well have been you and me, and I killed them.”

            “They’re nothing like us.”

            “They’re everything like us.”

            “We never went after civilians.”

            “Neither has the Brotherhood.  All their targets have been military and government.”

            “They have a goddamn nuke.”

            “We had gundams.”

            “What, so you’re on their side now?”

            “No, I just don’t want to kill them.”

            “Then don’t.”

            I thought that Duo would understand.  Now I just felt alone.

            “Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Duo protested.  “Look, it just kinda pisses me off when you get all high and mighty.  I feel like you’re attacking me.”

            “You need to get your nose looked at,” I said, brushing by him.

            “Okay then,” Duo said, the irritability returning to his tone.

            An explosion rocked through the spaceport.

            Duo pulled me to the ground as I moved to shield him.  Our noses bumped, and Duo let out a yelp of pain.

            “Sorry…” I said quietly.

            “It’s fine,” Duo said through gritted teeth.  “That shooter was a decoy, goddammit I shoulda known.”

            “They wanted to clear the spaceport first.”

            “Stop romanticizing the fucking enemy, Yuy,” Duo growled.  “Come on, it was back towards security.  Hilde…”

            We were both already moving, Duo taking point.

            The security area was a mess of debris and small fires.

            “Shit,” Duo muttered, worrying at his bottom lip.

            An explosion went off right next to us, and I found myself on my back, staring at the high ceiling.  I tried to sit up, but I was too disoriented.  “Duo!” I called, but even if he answered, I wouldn’t have heard it over the ringing in my ears.

            They were coming for us, guns pointed.

            I took one out from flat on my back, sweeping his legs out from under him.  He was so surprised, he dropped his gun.  I went for it, ignoring the blood rushing in my head.

            One of the men had a gun on Duo.

            I let the gun skitter away, putting my hands up.

            They were talking to me, but I couldn’t hear anything.

            We got ours cells confiscated and were pushed out the front door, guns at our backs.  We were then unceremoniously shoved into an unmarked van.

            Duo looked really out of it, blood flowing freely from his nose.

            I crawled over to him, trying to keep my balance as the van sped through the streets.

            Duo cracked open an eye, then pulled me the rest of the way over to him, keeping his arms around me protectively.  He said something, but the words were still unintelligible to me.  Then he seemed to get angry, and I realized he was arguing with our captors.

            It felt strange being the one protected.

            The words started getting clearer, and I realized that Duo was trying to get them to let me go, saying that I was only a lab tech.

            Our captors shot back something about gundams.

            Did they know who we were?

            My hearing finally seemed to clear, though the tinnitus lingered, and I realized that Duo was murmuring soothing nonsense at me.

            “You’re okay,” he said next to my ear.

            I hadn’t noticed how much I was shaking.

            Duo started humming something softly, and I recognized it from another lifetime ago.

            _“Sister Helen used to sing it to me when I had nightmares,”_ he’d told me in the dark of the sleeping compartment on Peacemillion.

            “Enough with the crappy humming already,” one of our captors growled,

            “Here I am, gracing you with my angelic voice, and you have the audacity to complain,” Duo muttered.

            “Maybe you should watch your smart mouth and remember who has the guns here,” the man snarled.

            “Easy,” the other captor said, putting a hand on his arm.

            If I dropped from Duo’s hold, I could scissor kick the guns out of both the men’s hands, then-

            “Hey, come on,” Duo said, tightening his hold.  “Everything’s gonna be okay, Heero, yeah?  Just take it easy.”

            “I’m sorry,” I said into his shoulder.  “I don’t mean to be like this.”

            “Don’t be sorry,” he murmured, his voice barely audible.  “I think your little panic attack has somehow blinded them to the fact that they haven’t tied us up.”

            “They want us for something.”

            “Hey, enough with the private conversation,” the overzealous captor growled, jamming his gun into my back.

            “I told you, he’s scared,” Duo said, pulling me closer.

            There were so many things wrong with this scenario, yet the thing I was getting hung up on was how close I was to Duo.  His warm hands on my back, the solidness of his chest against mine.  I could _smell_ him.

            The monster in me found this all superfluous and wondered why we weren’t crushing the first enemy’s windpipe and using his body as a shield to plow through the second enemy.

            I just wanted to be normal and think normal thoughts.

            “Is the widdle baby gonna pee his pants?” the captor taunted me.

            “Does a five-year-old write your comebacks?” Duo asked with a snort.

            Then we were both ducking and rolling as the captor tried to pistol-whip Duo.

            “Juárez, enough!” the other man roared.

            The overly zealous captor named Juárez lowered the gun he had pointed at Duo.  He didn’t look happy about it.

            Duo wiped a smear of blood from his nose.  The gun had clipped it.

            “Pretty spry for just a lab tech,” Juárez muttered, glowering at me.

            I looked away.  I knew if I kept looking, I would do something.

            “We’re almost there,” the unnamed captor said through clenched teeth.

            “We should tie them up.”

            “They’re not prisoners.”

            “We’re not?” Duo asked, blood bubbling down his face.

            I ripped off a piece of cloth from the bottom of my t-shirt and stuffed it in his nose.

            “Romantic, Yuy,” he said with a snort, his voice coming out nasally and slightly distorted.

            I flushed, then braced myself as I felt the van’s momentum changing.

            We all lurched slightly, but maintained our balance.

            Then the doors flew open and we were being dragged out into a dark warehouse.

            “We’re not prisoners,” Duo laughed as they threw us on the ground and surrounded us with guns.

            “Shut up, Duo,” I said, but there was no bite in the words.

            Duo just laughed more.

            “Did he sustain a head injury during the explosion?” one of the new captors asked.

            “Nah, just has a few screws loose,” Juárez said.

            “Doesn’t seem like he’ll be very useful then.”

            “And why’s the other one look like he’s having a panic attack?”  
            “I think he _is_ having a panic attack.”

            I wasn’t.  It was just hard to breathe when my mind was telling me all of the ways I could crush these men and their guns.

            “The crazy one is the God of Death, Pilot 02.”

            “The crazy one?” Duo murmured into my ear.  “Clearly they’ve never seen you leap from a tall building without a parachute.”  He slid his arm around me again like in the van.

            The weight of his hand on my back felt like an anchor, drawing me back into myself.

            “So this one is Heero Yuy?  I expected… more.”

            “He’s gone to school and become a lab tech.”

            “He’s not in the field?”

            “Only for forensics.”

            “He mastered the Zero System when he was younger, but…”

            “Wait, wait, hold the fucking phone,” Duo said, all humor draining from his face.  “What is this?  How do you know about us?”

            And then Aaron Easton, leader of the Brotherhood, stepped into the circle.


	11. Chapter 11

            Aaron Motherfucking Easton.

            We’d all had to go to L3 to investigate the Massacre.  We’d all had to see the red-splattered walls, the scattered body parts.  We’d all had to watch the video of Aaron Easton, standing in front of the burning military housing, calmly stating that L3 was a sovereign nation that would not be occupied by ESUN soldiers.

            I greeted him with a pleasant smile.

            “I’ll make this simple,” he said, crouching down in front of us.

            Heero tensed almost imperceptibly.

            I rubbed the back of his neck, trying to keep him where he was.  I knew that Heero was superman and all, but there were a lot of guns pointed at us.  I was also starting to realize what it cost him to be superman.

            “The Preventers have been interfering with our missions,” he said, looking between us.  “But I think we’re both working towards the same goal.”

            “Hoo boy,” I murmured.

            Aaron looked amused.  “That mouth never stops, does it?”

            “Afraid not.”

            “You know that I was part of the original Operation Meteor.”

            “The one that involved dropping a colony on the earth?  Yeah, I’d heard.”

            “You were given the same mission specs.”

            “And I chose to ignore them.”

            “We’re on the same side, Maxwell.  Fighting for the colonies.  Fighting for equality.”

            “Look, I get it,” I said, keeping a hand on Heero’s shoulder.  Something was running through his mind, a thrum physically vibrating through him.  I wanted to handle everything and keep him out of it.  “I grew up on L2.  I know how shit was.  And I know it isn’t magically better.”

            “And you know that not a single one of the higher government offices is held by a colonist.”

            “Yeah, I had noticed.”

            “And that the earth is keeping its military presence active on the colonies with its so-called peace-keeping forces.”

            “They don’t have mobile suits.”

            “They have guns.”

            “Everyone on L2 has a gun.”

            Aaron laughed at that.

            “I mean, you’re the one pushing guns through all the colonies,” I pointed out.

            “People need to protect themselves.”

            “Yeah, from all the people you’re giving guns to.”

            “Well, them, and of course from the military.”

            “You want us to join you,” Heero said softly.

            “That’s the idea, yes,” Aaron said, studying Heero like he was something very interesting.

            “And if we don’t?” I asked.

            “Then we’ll use you as leverage.”

            “Heero’s not an agent,” I said flatly.  “He’s not any use to you as leverage or otherwise.”

            “He’s basically the son of the director of the Preventers,” Aaron said, shaking his head.  “I think he might just be the _most_ valuable.”

            “I wouldn’t really call him her son…” I mumbled.

            “I’m okay, Duo,” Heero said, straightening up and pulling away from me.  “He’s not wrong about what he’s saying.  Things are different on L1 and L4, but the other colonies aren’t much better off than they were under Alliance rule.”

            So that’s how we were playing it.  “It’s not like I’m terribly attached to the government, but I feel like what I’m doing at the Preventers is more worthwhile than blowing up people with a nuke.”

            “Paper-pushing in an office?” Heero said.

            “A nuke, Heero, a goddamn nuke.”

            We stared at each other silently.  I concentrated on keeping an angry look on my face while I tried to read Heero’s expression, tried to read where he was going.

            “Just tell us what you want from us,” Heero said, turning to Aaron abruptly.

            “Have I not been clear?  I want you to join the Brotherhood.”

            “And why should we join your little terrorist organization?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.  I was tired of sitting in this circle of guns.  I missed _my_ gun.

            “Our little terrorist organization is a logical continuation of what you and your little terrorist organization started.”

            “Like the Barton Foundation dropping a colony on earth was a logical continuation?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

            “Dekhim Barton was a fool,” Aaron said, crouching down in front of me so that we were eye-to-eye.  He wasn’t holding a gun, and I thought about all the fun ways I could take him out.  “Destroying the earth isn’t the way to peace.”

            “The way to peace?” I choked out with a snort.  There was a weird gurgle in my speech, and I probably needed to see a doctor about my broken nose.  “So blowing up sleeping military recruits on L3 is the way?”

            “Soldiers sign up to fight.  Civilians do not.”

            “Okay…” I said, tired of talking around in circles.

            “Why us?” Heero interjected.

            Aaron turned to him with a broad smile.  “Follow me.”

            We stood up, and when I didn’t move to follow immediately, my old friend Juárez pushed me forward with the butt of his gun.

            Heero walked next to Aaron.

            We moved deeper into the warehouse, and the hangar door was pulled open in front of us.

            “Holy fucking shit,” was all I could say.

            Heero looked completely lost for a moment, a slow, unnatural smile spreading across his face.

            “As you know, I was part of the original Operation M,” Aaron said.  “I assisted in the construction of Gundam Heavyarms, which was based on the design of Wing Zero.”

            I tried to think of something clever to say, but all I could do was gape.  I hadn’t seen a mobile suit in years.  But this wasn’t a mobile suit.  No, it was definitely not a mobile suit.

            “Gundam,” Heero whispered reverently.

            “Gundam bad, Heero, gundam very bad,” I hissed in his ear.

            Heero turned to me, blinking away the glaze in his eyes.  Then he got scared.

            Aaron was watching us.

            “Please tell me that thing doesn’t have the Zero System,” I said, eyeing it warily.

            “If you’re going to build a gundam, you ought to build it right,” Aaron said with a twinkle in his eye.

            “Jesus,” I muttered.  “It’s not like there’s even another mobile suit for you to fight.”

            “And that’s where you’re wrong,” Aaron said, walking over to the gundam and resting his hand against the metal.  “That’s why I built her.”

            “The ESUN had all the mobile suits destroyed,” I said irritably.  “I’m sure there’s still a few hidden out there, but what’s a rusty old Leo gonna do?”

            “Not so rusty when there’s been a secret mobile suit factory here in Venezuela since the end of the war.”

            “And we’re supposed to just believe that?”

            “Choose to believe it or not, it doesn’t change the fact that it exists.”

            “And Vice President Fernandez knew about it,” Heero said.  His voice was still quiet, the tone flat.

            “How do you think she became the vice president?” Aaron asked with a nasty smile.  “Our plan is simple.  We want to destroy the mobile suit factory.  In, out, and over.”

            “And you want a former gundam pilot to pilot a new gundam to make as much of a spectacle out of it as possible,” I said.

            “Of course,” Aaron said.  “We need everyone to know what their government has been up to.”

            “I’ll do it,” Heero said, his tone still flat.

            “No, you will not,” I said, turning to him.

            “Mobile suits don’t belong in this world,” he said, eyes meeting mine.

            I finally noticed that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, probably hadn’t since the explosion.  It made him look less geeky and more like how I remembered him from the war.

            I missed the glasses.

            “Yeah, but piloting a gundam for a terrorist organization isn’t exactly the way to go about rectifying that.”

            Heero gave me a long look.

            “Yes, yes, I get it already!” I said, throwing my hands up in the air.  “That’s what we did.  When we were stupid kids.  This is not the same.”

            “You don’t have to do anything,” Heero said, turning his gaze back to the gundam.  “I said I’d do it.”

            “I’m glad we have an understanding,” Aaron said.

            Despite ‘not being prisoners’, we were left in a locked room with a guard on the door.

            “You _cannot_ pilot that thing,” I hissed into Heero’s ear.  We sat against the wall farthest from the door and prying ears, our shoulders touching as we talked.

            “They’re not going to just let us go,” Heero replied.

            “Well you didn’t need to start fanboying over the fucking gundam.”

            “I wasn’t-” Heero started, his voice coming out louder than intended.  He flushed, turning his face away from me.

            “Heero,” I said, gripping his chin and turning his face to me.  I rested my forehead against his.  “I’m scared for you, okay?  The Zero System does things to people.”

            “I mastered it.”

            “That was fifteen years ago, and you’re not the same person you were then.  I don’t want this thing to… I don’t know, I don’t want it to change you.”

            “What does it matter to you?” Heero asked, pulling his forehead away from mine.

            “Une will ream my ass over,” I said, forcing a smile.

            That wasn’t the reason.

            “If there really is a factory…” Heero said, looking towards the door.  It sounded like the guard was talking to someone.

            “Then we take care of it… through legal channels…” I trailed off, wondering when I’d become a government drone.

            Heero was smiling, probably thinking the same thing.

            “I’m going back to bounty hunting,” I groaned.

            “I think being a Preventer suits you.”

            “I think you just like a man in uniform,” I said with a snort.

            Heero did not appreciate that.

            “I wonder if they’re gonna feed us,” I said after a while to break up the silence.

            Heero still didn’t answer.

            “Heeeeero,” I whined.

            “Are you reverting to your fifteen-year-old self?” he muttered, not looking at me.

            “Maybe,” I said.  I poked him in the side, watching him squirm.

            “Stop,” he finally said after about the tenth time.

            “Make me.”

            He turned to me with those fiery blue eyes of his, fully intending to stop me, so I kissed him.

            I found myself staring up at the dank ceiling, blood flowing from my nose again.  I was starting to get a little woozy from all the blood loss.  It wasn’t from the chapped touch of Heero’s lips, that was for sure.  What a crappy kiss.

            “Why do you do things like that?” he asked.  His tone was flat like always, but I could hear the sadness in it.

            When I actually tried, I could read Heero like a book.

            “I just felt like it,” I said, laughing a little as I smeared blood under my nose.

            “Well I don’t want you to.”

            “Uh-huh.”

            “I don’t,” he said sharply.

            “Yes, you do.”

            Heero made a frustrated-sounding noise.

            I startled, sitting up and looking at him.

            “Don’t play around with me.”

            “I’m not playing.”

            “Then why are you laughing?”

            “You know how I am,” I said, gesturing vaguely.

            “Yes, that’s why I know that you’re playing around with me.”

            “I’m not-”

            “Why did you just do that?”

            “Because I-”

            “Give me an actual goddamn reason,” he said, and I could tell he was getting pissed.

            “I…” I started, but I couldn’t finish the thought.  Why had I done it?  It wasn’t like I was actually attracted to Heero.  Well, okay, I was a little.  He was a good-looking guy, always had been.  But he was so damn weird and awkward.

            “Don’t do it again,” Heero said, his voice unfriendly.

            “And what if I do?” I asked with a shrug.

            “Just please don’t.”

            I opened my mouth to tell him that I was just bored, but I shut it as soon as he said please.

            Heero shifted, staring off into space.

            “Hey, I uh…” I started to say, a weird buzzing sound roaring in my ears.

            Then I fainted.

            Heero looked like he was trying not to laugh when I opened my eyes.

            “This isn’t funny,” I informed him.  “I need medical attention.”

            “I packed it properly,” Heero said, touching the tip of my nose.

            My eyes met his, and he looked away, taking his finger with him.  I tried to sit up, only to feel the blood rush to my head as my vision started to fuzz.

            Heero stood up, walking towards the door.  “We need to get out of here.”

            “So you’re not going to pilot the gundam?”

            “If it gets us out of here I will.”

            “Don’t you have some crazy plan that involves bombs and dumb luck?”

            “I don’t do that anymore.”

            “So I have to make the plan with the bombs and dumb luck?”

            “It wasn’t dumb luck, it was skill,” Heero muttered.

            I snorted at that.  My head hurt.

            They finally brought us some food after midnight.  I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, which probably explained my unmanly bout of fainting, so I demolished the food without any complaint about how crappy it was.

            We took turns sleeping.

            The warehouse didn’t have any windows, but we could both feel dawn creeping in.

            “You don’t really agree with Easton, right?” I asked across the dark room.

            “I understand his point of view,” Heero said.

            “But you don’t agree with him.”

            Heero didn’t answer.

            They threw some breakfast at us, then Aaron himself came to see us again.

            “We’ll do it today, if you’re ready,” he said, looking at Heero.

            “I’ll do it,” I interjected.

            They both turned to look at me.

            “Look, I think you’re crazy,” I said.  “And you probably belong in a life-long jail sentence.  But if there’s really a mobile suit factory… and if the government knows about it…”

            “You know that we’ll use your image.  We’ll show it to the world.  You won’t be able to go back to the Preventers.”

            “I was a better bounty hunter anyway.”

            Aaron looked at me with calculating eyes.  “There’s a remote-activated detonation switch in the gundam.  It will kill the pilot while minimizing damage to Minerva.  You won’t be able to go off mission.”

            “Minerva…” Heero murmured with that stupid glazed look in his eyes again.

            “That’s her name,” Aaron said.  “Would you like to see her more closely?”

            “Yes.”

            We went back out to the hangar, fewer guns on us now.

            I had to admit, she was a beautiful machine.  I wasn’t the fanboy that Heero was, but looking at the specs and then actually being able to look into the cockpit…

            It had been hard saying goodbye to Deathscythe, and I felt a strange longing as I ran my hand over the controls.

            “It’s too bad that man can’t handle such beautiful machines without turning them into weapons of war,” Aaron commented.

            I thought about pushing him out of the cockpit to his death.  It would probably get me and Heero shot, but it might be worth it.  Because I certainly did not agree with him or any of his ideology.

            I didn’t.

            It took a while to work the plan out.

Heero still wanted to pilot.  I was hoping it was because he had a plan and not because he was being seduced by Gundam Minerva.  Either way, I didn’t want him in the gundam.  I thought about him throwing up after he killed the Black Freedom guy in our hotel.  I thought about how his hands shook and the terror in his eyes after he shot the would-be assassin at the spaceport.  Heero belonged in a lab with a bunch of beakers filled with multi-colored bubbling liquids, not out fighting a war.

            I wanted to keep him safe.

            “You can’t even see five feet in front of you without your glasses, how the hell are you going to pilot a mobile suit?” I finally asked.

            Heero glared at me.

            Aaron had been studying us thoughtfully throughout our exchange.  “Maxwell is more visible as a gundam pilot.  We have the old newsreel from when he was imprisoned on the lunar base.  I think that Dr. Yuy will be more useful behind the scenes.  That is, of course, if you’re willing to help us take out the factory.”

            “I’m willing,” Heero said flatly.  I could tell he was pouting.

            And that’s how Heero and I became terrorists.  Again.

            I hoped Heero had a plan, because I sure as hell didn’t.


	12. Chapter 12

            I was annoyed but relieved that I wouldn’t be piloting the gundam.  Just the sight of it had awoken something inside of me, something probably best left contained.

            Of course, now I could no longer hack the remote detonator from the cockpit and disarm it so that I could steal the gundam and destroy it.  I’d have to figure out a way to remote hack it, and with Aaron Easton constantly at my side, that didn’t seem very likely.

            I continued to play the part of a collaborator, but undercover was more Trowa’s specialty than mine.  I could tell that Aaron wasn’t buying into it completely, and that he would never trust me alone with the gundam schematics and access to a computer.

            He did, however, let me sit at his side as Duo test-piloted Minerva around the warehouse.  The key to the remote detonator was around his neck, and he fingered it as he watched Duo’s progress.

            “There’s another one,” he said, not taking his eyes off of Minerva.

            “Another gundam?” I asked, wrinkling my brow.

            “Another key,” he said with a little smile.

            So stealing the key wouldn’t work.  Unless he was bluffing.

            Duo moved Minerva with grace and skill.  Fifteen years hadn’t made him rusty at all.

            The Zero System hadn’t been activated.

            Duo fell quiet as it whirred to life.

            Aaron studied my face for a moment then flipped on the communicator.  “Everything all right, Maxwell?”

            Duo stayed quiet, then let out a long, shuddering breath.  “Yeah.  Holy shit.  I forgot how trippy this damn system is.”

            “Can I talk to him?” I requested.

            “Sure,” Aaron said, smiling like he trusted me.  He handed the communicator to me.

            “Duo?”

            “Hey, buddy,” Duo said with a hoarse laugh.

            “It’s just data.”                         

            “What’s that now?”

            “Everything you’re seeing right now.  It’s just data.”

            “Well that solves everything then.  It’s only data, not me gunning down civies.”

            “…is that what you’re seeing?” I asked.

            “Why can’t these damn hallucinations ever be something nice, like frolicking through a field of flowers with an army of puppies?  Now that’s an army that I could get behind.”

            “You sound all right.”

            “Peachy fucking keen, Heero.”

            “Okay…”

            Aaron held out his hand and I returned the communicator to him.  He didn’t acknowledge if he’d noticed the Morse code I’d been tapping against the microphone.  “Maxwell, can you handle the mission?”

            “Well, of course,” Duo said.  “Since you’re gonna blow me up if I can’t and all.”

            “I wouldn’t blow you up if you can’t,” Aaron said.  “I’d blow you up if you tried to steal my gundam.”

            “Very comforting,” Duo said.  His voice sounded strained.  He wasn’t handling the Zero System well.

            “I think I should do it,” I put in.

            “No, that won’t be necessary,” Aaron said.  “I’ll call for you if I need you.”

            I found myself being whisked away by the guards.

            I was alone in the cell for hours.  Every time I calmed myself down, an errant thought would set me off again.

            I was scared.

            No, I was terrified.

            Of losing Duo.  Of secret government mobile suits.  Of the coming war.  Of losing myself.

            “We’re about to begin,” a guard said, poking me with his gun to lead me back to the control room.

            There was a camera in the cockpit that was projecting Duo on a large screen in the center of the room.  It was flanked by external views from Minerva’s cameras.

            I watched the whole thing feeling like I was in a dream.

            “Do you regret not piloting her?” Aaron asked.

            I didn’t have an answer.

            As soon as the gundam was seen walking through downtown Caracas, the news channels lit up with breaking news reports, fanning the flames of panic.

            “I want you to record your statement, now,” Aaron told Duo.

            “Do I have to?” Duo said in that whiny teenage way of his.

            “I’d recommend it,” Aaron said.  He smiled warmly as he fingered the detonator key around his neck.

            “Do I just start talking or…?”

            “Yes, we’ll edit it for presentation.”

            “I cannot fucking-lieve that I am doing this,” Duo muttered, pulling out a sheet of paper.  He shook his head, then looked back into the camera.  “This is former gundam pilot and should-be underwear supermodel Duo Maxwell.”

            Aaron’s eye twitched at Duo’s ad-lib.

            “Listen, guys.  Mobile suits.  Fucking mobile suits buried in the fair city of Caracas.  I’ve got no choice but to blow them the fuck up,” Duo concluded, flashing the camera a pearly smile.

            “Could you just stick to the script?” Aaron requested, shaking his head.

            “You can edit it later,” Duo said.  “I’ve got a factory to destroy.”

            I don’t know what we were hoping for.  When Duo reached the coordinates that Aaron had given him and slid open the factory door, it was a relief to see just an ordinary car plant.

            “You need to go deeper,” Aaron said.

            A few people on the factory floor were running and screaming from the gundam looming over them.

            Duo looked conflicted.

            “What are you doing?” Aaron asked, pulling the key from his neck.

            “Considering my options,” Duo replied, smiling smoothly and pulling his hand from the console.

            He’d been starting to disable the detonation system.

            It was obvious to me, because I’d told him how to do it.

            Was it obvious to Aaron?

            “Your options are find the factory or die,” he said evenly.

            “All righty then,” Duo said, moving Minerva into the factory.

            The TV showing the news broadcast was filling up with police helicopters and emergency vehicles surrounding the factory.

            Then Duo found the mobile suits.

            There were at least a hundred.

            Enough for an army.

            All buried under a car factory in Caracas.

            I could see it in Duo’s face.  He’d been hoping that it wasn’t true.  But it was, and now he had a choice to make.

            “Destroy them,” Aaron said.

            Duo panned around the room with the gundam’s external camera.  “Yeah?  You don’t want to keep some for your little army?”

            “I have a gundam.”

            Duo’s eyes searched for mine, but I wasn’t in range of the camera transmitting to the cockpit.  “Well, I hate to be on the same side as a terrorist, but I can’t fault your logic,” he said, raising Minerva’s beam saber and slicing through a line of what looked like Tauruses, slightly modified.

            Some of the workers apparently knew how to pilot the suits, but they were no match for Duo.

            I didn’t watch.

            I knew Duo.  Maybe lately I felt the distance between us, but in this, in _war_ , I knew Duo Maxwell better than anyone.

            Once he was done with the factory, he would either steal the gundam or find a way to destroy it.  Both scenarios would potentially lead to his death.

            “Do you think this was the right thing?” Aaron asked me.

            I looked at him.  I measured him.  He wanted me on his side.  “Mobile suits cannot be trusted in the hands of humanity.”

            “What about a gundam?” he prodded.

            “The same.”

            “Even if it was in your hands?”

            “…no.”

            “I would entrust humanity to you.”

            “Sir?” one of the guards interrupted.  “We’ve stopped receiving a signal from the detonation device.”

            “As expected,” Aaron said, shaking his head.

            The bullet ripped through my hand as I tried to protect my stomach.  It buried in my gut, hot yet numbing at the same time.  I crumpled to the ground.

            “What did you do?!” Duo cried in a panic.  The camera wasn’t on me.  “What did you do?!”

            “Duo, I’m fine,” I tried to call to him, but my voice wasn’t very loud.

            A guard grabbed me by my armpits and dragged me within range of the camera.

            “Fuck,” Duo swore.  “Are you okay?  Fuck.  _Fuck_.”

            “I’m fine,” I repeated.  I held my bleeding stomach with my holey hand.

            “I’m going to put a hole in him for every minute you’re not on your way back here,” Aaron said, smiling at him evenly.

            “What the fuck do I care about some lab tech?” Duo asked with a snort, trying to act like he hadn’t just completely panicked at the sight of me.

            “A great deal, apparently,” Aaron said.  “But if you want to play it glib,” he said, clicking off the safety of his gun and pointing it at my leg.

            Duo swallowed.  He was thinking about it.

            “You have to destroy that gundam,” I said.

            Aaron shot me in the foot.

            Duo crumbled.  “Jesus, fuck, stop!  I’m coming.  Do you hear me?!  Just stop.”

            “I hear you,” Aaron said.  “You better not lead all those cops back here.”

            “Fuck you,” Duo spat, sending Minerva back into the daylight.

            I closed my eyes and rested.  It had been a while since I’d been in this much pain, but I knew it would pass.  It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.  I let them think I was unconscious.

            “Should we kill zero two?”

            “He could still be useful.”

            “Let’s get ready to move out.”

            We weren’t there when Duo came back.

            The transport to the next base was a blur of pain.  I was no longer with Aaron, so there was nothing worth overhearing.  A medic tended to my wounds.  I needed the bullet in my stomach to be removed.

            “Can he pilot the other gundam?”

            “He needs surgery first.”

            “Do you think he’ll do it?”

            “We need to send a message to the president.”

            Duo finally appeared in the makeshift infirmary.  He sat on the edge of the bed and squeezed my hand.  “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly.

            I was pretending to be asleep, but I squeezed his hand back.  It was weird to feel nervous, but I couldn’t untie the knot in my stomach.  Even in a crisis, Duo Maxwell reduced me to a lovestruck schoolboy.

            They took him away.

            “You can’t trust the ESUN,” Aaron said, sitting next to my bed.  “They’re building mobile suits.  They’re getting ready for a war.”

            He wasn’t wrong.

            The thought took root, and it just wouldn’t go away.

            This was how wars started.  When both sides weren’t wrong.  It didn’t mean that either side was right.

            That’s why I had to kill him.

            Was I even capable?

            If I had been the one piloting Minerva, would I have come back when Aaron started shooting Duo?

            It was an unknown quantity.

            Duo had always muddled my sense of duty.  But now there were other faces, too.  There was Mariemaia and Une, and there was Quatre.  People weren’t just numbers.  I thought that I’d finally understood that.

            I needed to kill Aaron?

            They put me under and removed the bullet from my gut.  It was getting infected, a little bit of torn t-shirt trapped inside the wound.

            I lay in bed for two days.  Putting pressure on my foot was excruciating, but it didn’t matter, I would walk on it when the time was right.  I would run.  They would underestimate me because of my injuries.

            The guards all had guns.  They would be very easy to steal.  I’d have to take kill shots to get past all of them.

            I was ready.  If I waited any longer, they’d start to realize that I wasn’t as hurt as they thought.

            This was who I could never escape.  I was the machine that Dr. J built, unable to deviate from my programming.

            I hoped Quatre would take in my hamsters.

            It was an odd thought.

            I didn’t expect to survive.

            Even if I did, I wouldn’t be the kind of person who kept hamsters and liked drinking tea from a Gundam 00 mug.

            I didn’t know what kind of person I’d be.

            I didn’t want to find out.

            Something was happening.

            I limped to the door, trying not to put unnecessary pressure on my foot.  I picked the lock silently, the slow precise movements of my fingers done with the ease of muscle memory.

            It was silent outside.

            I hesitated.  Then I pushed the door open anyway.

            The guard was unconscious, his firearm gone.  A strange odor lingered in the air, not enough to knock me out.  The guard would stay out for another twenty minutes, I estimated.

            I hugged the wall, dragging my foot beside me as I went.

            I had not been fully conscious when they’d brought me here, but I still knew the basic way to the entrance we’d come through.

            There were more unconscious guards with empty holsters.

            I needed a weapon.  Someone was coming.

            I hid underneath the guards.  I hoped my timeframe of the effectiveness of the knockout gas was correct.

            He moved smoothly, a gun in each hand, one trained on the pile of unconscious guards.

            “Trowa,” I choked out, my throat thick from disuse.

            “Damn, Yuy,” he said, clicking the safety back on and holstering one of his guns.  He kept the other out.  “We wanted to extract you before we sent in the cavalry, but no one could find you.”  He pulled the two bodies off of me.

            I tried to stand.

            Trowa shook his head, crouching down in front of me and offering me his back.

            “I can walk.”

            “I know that, superman, but it’s unnecessary,” he said, patting his shoulder impatiently.

            I felt like a child, putting my arms over his shoulders and letting him lift me.

            “You’re heavy for such a tiny thing,” he complained, giving me his gun so he could hook his arms under my legs.

            “Tiny?” I muttered, not sure if I was insulted or if that was an accurate assessment.  I was the shortest adult male that I knew.

            “Water, I’ve got zero one,” Trowa said.  “We’re on the second floor, moving east.”

            There was a faint crackling in Trowa’s ear, the words hard to make out.  All I knew was that they were coming.

            “Is Duo out?” I asked as Trowa jogged up the stairs.

            “Yes,” he said.  It was flat, but I could feel the tension radiating through him.

            We reached the roof, watching as a helicopter approached from the distance.  As soon as we were seated and taking off, an explosion of military appeared below us, raiding the building.

            I was taken to the hospital.

            Sally was my doctor in the sealed-off wing.

            “What the hell were you thinking, pulling all these stitches?” she growled at me.

            “Trying to escape a hostage situation.”

            She sighed loudly.

            I hesitated.  “Where’s Duo?”

            Dark blue eyes met mine.  “A detainment cell,” she said, before turning back to her work.

            “When will they let him out?”

            “Piloting a mobile suit is a Class A terrorist felony.”

            I stared at her.

            She sighed.  “Une’s doing what she can.  The video footage that the Brotherhood released to the media isn’t exactly helping.”

            I felt petulant.

            “You are the worst patient,” Sally said, smiling fondly.  She was clearly thinking back to when we’d first met, almost 15 years ago.  Another lifetime ago.

            She didn’t deem me fit to travel for another week.

            Then we were finally on our way back to L1.


	13. Chapter 13

            I’d never been so happy to see Wufei.

            “Maxwell, what have I told you about overt displays of affection?!”

            “I don’t know, I don’t listen to anything you say,” I said, squeezing him tighter right there in front of the entire spaceport.

            He patted my back, which was his equivalent of returning my hug.  “Let’s go,” he said gruffly.

            “Where to, boss-man?”

            “The office.”

            “Are you going to throw me a welcome home party?!”

            “No, we have work to do.”

            “I’ve been in a detainment center for a month, don’t I get a day off?”

            “That was your time off.  I’ll be docking you one month’s worth of vacation days.”

            I gaped at him.

            Wufei smirked.

            “Did you just… make a… _joke_ …?”

            He shrugged and led the way to his car.

            Everyone was waiting in the office.  There was even a cake.  And _good_ coffee.

            “You _did_ plan a party for me!” I said, giving Wufei another hug.

            “I had nothing to do with this!” he protested indignantly.

            Then I saw Heero, and it felt like the air went out of the room.

            He was way at the back of the crowd, head ducked down and eyes staring at the ground.  They flicked up to meet mine.

            I stared at him.

            He looked away.

            “Are you salivating over this coffee?” Andrea asked, grinning as she held up a cup to me.

            I half-smiled, still looking at Heero.  I wanted to go right up to him and…

            And what?

            “I’m so glad you’re back,” Hilde said, hugging me.

            I blinked, directing myself back towards the woman who had found us and saved our asses.  “Thanks to you,” I said, giving her a sloppy smooch on the cheek.

            “Great, now can we get back to work?” Wufei complained.  “Aaron Easton is still out there, and he’s got two goddamn gundams.”

            “And no one to pilot them,” I said, waving off his worries.  My feet were moving me towards Heero.  “Hey.”

            Heero looked up confused, like he didn’t think I was talking to him.

            “Hey,” I repeated, looking into his eyes.

            He shifted, pushing his glasses up his nose.  “You’re looking… well…”

            “Can’t say the same for you,” I said, touching his bandaged hand before it could fall back to his side.

            Heero’s whole body tensed up and he stood motionless.

            I quickly withdrew my hand.

            He shifted uncomfortably.

            “Do you always have to be so damn awkward around me?” I muttered.

            That seemed to make it worse.

            “I have to g-go,” he stuttered, speeding away with a limp.  He disappeared out the main door.

            “What’s up with you and the sped?” Andrea asked with a snort.

            “Fuck off,” I snarled, elbowing past her.

            Hilde said something nasty to Andrea that I couldn’t quite hear.

            “Duo, let’s chat,” Sally said, linking arms with me and pulling me to her office.

            I sat down across from her desk while she took her chair.

            “I’m so glad that you’re here and in once piece,” she said.  “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you out sooner.”

            “I did kind of commit some crimes,” I said, trying to smile.

            “You got us funded with your crimes, though, so yay for that,” Sally said.

            I smiled a little more genuinely.

            “I know you’ve just come back from what was likely an unpleasant experience, so maybe you’re a little on edge.  But are you having issues with Agent Schultz?”

            I almost said no, then nodded.  “Yeah.”

            “What’s up?”

            “I’m tired of these damn outsiders in our business.”

            “I thought you two were working well together.”

            “Look, Dan and Andrea are fine and all, but they’re kids.  They didn’t fight in the war.  They don’t know shit about shit, so maybe they should keep their mouths shut.”

            “We chose them because they were at the top of the ESUNBI Academy’s graduating class and tested well on their personality assessments.  The Preventers can’t keep going if it’s only us.”

            “I know that.  Look, I thought I trusted Andrea, but she keeps saying this shit about Quatre and… others, and it pisses me off.  She owes her goddamn life to them.”

            “It seems to me like most of the agents talk shit about our lab techs,” Sally said, giving me a long look.

            “Yeah, okay, yes,” I said.  “But that’s different.”

            “Is it?” she asked.

            “Yes, because I fought side-by-side with them, and I care about them.”

            “You do seem to care about one of them in particular,” she said, giving me a meaningful look.

            “I… wait… what?”

            “Just something I’ve been observing,” she said.  Her smile was getting malicious.  “Hey, remember when you told everyone about me and Wufei?”

            “Um, that was… and it… yes?”

            She watched me silently, making me squirm in my seat.

            “I’m… sorry?” I offered.

            Sally smiled her real smile.  “Nah, it’s fine.”

            “Good?”

            “I’m not gonna be putting Heero in the field for a while.”

            “He’ll hate that.”

            “Yeah.  But I’m afraid Easton might come for you two again.  Or for one of the others.”

            “He’d be better off grooming his own pilot.”

            “Who knows what a nutcase like that is going to do,” Sally said with a sigh.  “Anyway, I’d like it if you kept an eye on Heero.  Whatever is going on between you two, please fix it.”

            “There’s nothing going on…” I tried to protest.

            Sally ignored me.  “This case has brought up a lot things for him.  He won’t really talk to anyone, but maybe since you were there?  You two seem to have such a _special_ connection and all.”

            “Why are you saying these crazy things to me?”

            “Because you kept hounding me the whole time you were locked up about how Heero was.”

            “He got shot because of me!”

            “Oh, so it was just comradely concern?”

            “Yes!”

            “And your issues with Schultz?”

            “She says shit about Quatre, too!”

            “I’m pretty sure the person who talks the most shit about Quatre and Heero is you.  Are you really surprised that everyone else follows you?”

            “Why are you making me feel like the lowest scum on the colony?” I asked, sticking out my bottom lip in a pout.  I tried to over-exaggerate it to hide how very close to home she was hitting.

            “Go talk to Yuy.”

            I looked down.  “He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

            “He was harassing me about you just as much as you were harassing me about him.  I don’t know how I’ve ended up in the middle of this.”

            “ _This_ isn’t anything,” I protested.

            “Fine.  Whatever.  I don’t care.  But go talk to Heero anyway, and then get your ass back up here because we have work to do.”

            I gave her a half-assed salute and went down to the lab.

            Quatre was still upstairs, but Mariemaia and Heero were already back at work, analyzing something or other with a microscope.

            “Hey again,” I said, using my ID badge to enter the platform.

            Mariemaia frowned at me.  “What do you want?”

            “Po said that I have to talk to Heero.”

            “Oh, so you’re being forced to be here?” she asked, her tone unfriendly.

            “Yes,” I said.  I looked at Heero, who was still bent over the microscope and acting indifferent to our conversation.  I wanted… something.  “Can you give us a minute?”

            Mariemaia glanced at Heero.

            He looked up at her, giving a brief nod.

            “Try not being an asshole for five seconds,” she snarled at me as she went back into the morgue.  I didn’t really know why she would choose that particular location to get away.

            “Did I do something to her?” I asked.

            The door to the morgue slammed shut.

            “She’s just protective,” Heero said, limping to a chair and sitting down.

            “I didn’t know that the great Heero Yuy needed protecting,” I said, trying to make a joke.

            He looked even smaller than usual, the walking cast swallowing up his foot and the huge bandage overtaking his hand.  I stood over him and felt tall for the first time.  He was about three inches shorter than me, but I always somehow felt like I was looking up to him.  He had that kind of presence, even when he was being awkward.

            He just looked vulnerable now.  “What did you come down here for?”

            “I told you, Po said-”

            “What did you come down here for?”

            I sighed.  “Look.  I’ve been worried sick about you.”

            “You feel guilty.”

            “Yes, Heero, I feel fucking guilty,” I said, staring at his foot.  “Sally said that there was nerve damage to your hand-”

            “It’s fine.”

            “It’s not fine.  If I hadn’t disabled the detonator-”

            “I told you to do it.”

            “Okay, but if I hadn’t-”

            “You did.”

            I took a breath.  “I can’t believe he fucking shot you.”

            “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you.”

            It took me a moment to realize that he was being genuine.  He seemed less awkward, or maybe I was just getting used to it.

            “That month in the detainment center was nothing compared to an OZ prison,” I said, poking his side.

            He made a face, moving to stop me.

            I pushed his shirt up.

            Heero looked like a deer in headlights.  Well, his version of it anyway, since his expression remained neutral.  But I could read the slight widening of his eyes and the stiffness in his posture.

            I touched the wound there.  It was already starting to scar over.

            “Stop.”

            I pulled my hand away.

            Heero fussed his shirt back into place and pulled his lab coat closed over it.

            I caught his face in my hands.

            “Don-” he tried to protest, but I was already kissing him.

            It wasn’t like I’d planned on doing it.  In fact, I didn’t think I’d even wanted to do it.  I had looked at him and was just compelled to.

            Heero was completely tense, and I could feel him staring at me, even with my eyes closed.

            I held his face firmly, but I made the kiss gentle.  Maybe it was an apology of sorts.  I didn’t really understand, either, but I knew that I wanted it.  “Kiss me,” I mumbled into his lips.

            Heero swallowed.  I didn’t think he would, but then his lips moved almost imperceptibly against mine.

            I wanted to _consume_ him.

            Heero’s good hand caught on the collar of my uniform jacket, pulling me in or pushing me away, I wasn’t quite sure which.

            My knee had somehow settled on the chair between his legs, and I was bending over him ravaging his mouth with my tongue.  I had never wanted to kiss someone so thoroughly in my entire life.  I just wanted and wanted and wanted and then Heero shoved me away and I fell on my ass.

            “Do you even like me?” he asked, his voice as monotonous as ever despite the pain visible in his eyes.

            “What?”

            “Do you even like me?” he repeated.  “What is this to you?  A game?”

            “I… what?  Of course I like you, psycho.  And… I don’t know.  I kissed you because I wanted to.  So why are you shoving me on the floor?”

            Heero readjusted his glasses.  “Y-you don’t like me the way I like you.”

            “Are we middle schoolers?” I asked, standing up.  “You wanted it, I wanted it, what’s the problem?”

            He stood up, stumbling a little and turning his back to me.

            “Heero.”

            “You can’t just do whatever you want.”

            “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

            “That’s exactly it.  It _is_ a big deal.”

            “Okay, all right.  Yeah.  Maybe a little.”

            He turned around and glared at me.

            It weirdly lifted my spirits.

            “Look, all I know is that when you got shot, my heart stopped.  I know you’re indestructible and all, but… if something happened to you…”

            Heero’s expression softened.  He looked almost hopeful.

            “Can’t we just see where this goes?” I asked, taking a step closer.

            “Can we?” Heero asked, and he seemed to be genuinely asking.

            “Yeah,” I said, nodding.  “We can.”

            I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  All I knew was that I wanted it, and I hadn’t wanted anything in a long time.


	14. Chapter 14

            I felt stupid.

            Which was ridiculous because I had a PhD and was a certified genius.

            But here I was, kissing Duo Maxwell in my lab.  I knew he was only doing it because he was confusing pity with some kind of affection.

            It felt real, though.

            I’d somehow ended up sitting on my desk, which evened our heights out.

            Duo was pressed close, hands on the move, ghosting up my arms and down my spine.

            When I’d finally decided that it wasn’t some fluke and that we were actually doing this, I let my fingers slide into the loose braid at Duo’s nape, curling in tight.  I’d always thought that his hair was beautifully impractical.

            Duo was very good at this.

            I was forgetting myself, forgetting that we shouldn’t be doing this, forgetting that we were at work, and that my little sister was in the next room.

            “Holy crap.”

            Duo and I jerked away from one another.

            Mariemaia gaped at us.

            “Hey, Mari,” Duo said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Nice to see you again…”

            “I don’t know if I should be applauding this or screaming at you both for being idiots.”

            “Well, I really have to be getting back to work,” Duo said, edging towards the door.

            Mari’s look turned deadly.

            Duo’s eyes flicked nervously from her to me.

            I stared back blankly.

            “Come over,” Duo said.  “Tonight.”

            I felt my brow wrinkling in confusion.

            “I’ll text you.”

            And then he was gone.

            Mari gaped at me.

            I did my approximation of gaping, which was my mouth slightly open and my eyes minutely widened.

            “How did this happen?!” she demanded.

            “I… have no idea,” I said.

            “Are you happy?!”

            I shook my head.  “I don’t know.”

            Mari came over to me, her limp mirroring my own.  “This is what you wanted,” she said, pushing a smile into her eyes.

            “Is it?”

            “Yeah, ya dolt,” she said, smacking me in the arm.  “Oh my god, we need to get you ready for your date!”

            “It’s not a date…”

            “I didn’t bring any product with me, so we’ll have to stop by the store.”

            “Mari, we have work to do.”

            “Oh, that reminds me,” she said.  “Can you help me with this autopsy?  I have two possible causes of death.”

            I nodded, glad for a return to normalcy.

            Our working day ended at five, though I usually stayed late if I was onto something interesting.  The whole staff was busier now, had been much busier since we’d come back from earth.

            It would be easy to find an excuse to stay, but my phone was buzzing, and there was Duo’s address and ‘6:00’ with a question mark.

            ‘Fine,’ I typed back.

            Mari peered around my shoulder.  “You okay?” she asked.

            “What is your question in regards to?”

            “A lot of things,” she said, straightening up. 

            I looked up at her.  “I thought you’d be more excited.”

            “I thought you would be,” she countered.

            “I don’t know how to feel,” was the most honest assessment I could give.

            “What’re you two talking about?” Quatre chirped, coming through the door.

            We both went silent.

            “You’re hiding something from me?!”

            “We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” I said brusquely.

            Mariemaia looked to Quatre and shrugged before following me out the door.

            “You’re not even going to work overtime?!” he called out after me.

            Mari dragged me to the store to buy hair gel, changed her mind, and dragged me to the barbershop.

            “Make it look better,” she demanded desperately of the barber.

            He looked at me uncertainly.

            I shrugged.  My eyes probably looked murderous, but it wasn’t intentional.

            “Cut these damn bangs so we can actually see his eyes,” Mari instructed.  “And shape up the back.  And the front.  Like I said, just make it look better.”

            The man did what he could.

            Mari seemed pleased with the results.  “You are so handsome.”

            I stared at her.

            “You are,” she said, smiling.  “Even when you have that sourpuss on your face.”

            We made quite the pair, limping along to the train.

            “I don’t see why you don’t get your hair cut more often,” she commented.

            “When I cut my hair myself, you complain about that, too.”

            “Yeah, I’m saying you should go to a professional.”

            “My hair grows too fast.  I’d have to go every month.”

            “So get your hair cut every month.”

            “Tch.”

            “Did you just ‘tch’ at me?” she asked with a laugh.

            I watched as she got off at her stop, a pit starting to form in my stomach.

            There was no intellectual reason to be nervous.

            Duo’s apartment was easy enough to find.  I knocked on the door precisely at six.

            “Why am I not surprised that you’re right on time?” Duo said, opening the door with a rueful smile.  He still had his uniform on, and started undoing his tie as he walked into the apartment.  He paused, turning back to look at me standing in the doorway.  “Shit, you cut your hair?”

            I shrugged, easing the door shut behind me.

            “I forget how good-looking you are sometimes.”

            I didn’t know how to take that.

            “You want a drink?” he asked, tossing his tie over the back of a chair.

            “What are we doing here?” I asked.

            “Well, I live here,” he said, smiling easily.  “And you’re here, being you.”

            “I don’t know what that means.”

            “Yeah, a drink would be a good idea,” Duo said, shaking his head and moving to the kitchen.  He pulled out two beers, holding one up and waving it at me before putting it on the counter.  He popped the tab on his own and took a long drink.  “Stop acting like a scared rabbit and have a drink.”

            I frowned at that, even if it had a ring of truth to it.  Why couldn’t this just go smoothly?  I stepped into the kitchen and took the beer, taking a tentative drink.

            Then there was silence.

            I looked at Duo.

            He looked at me.

            We had absolutely nothing in common and nothing to talk about.

            What a terrible idea this was.

            Duo abruptly closed the space between us, putting his drink down and taking hold of my injured left hand.  “Are you going to be able to use it again?”

            “Why are you touching my hand?” I asked, scrunching up my brow.

            “Answer my question.”

            “You’re making me nervous.”

            He let go of me abruptly.  “I don’t understand you.”

            I looked away and cradled my hand to my chest.  It still ached.  “I have to get another surgery…”

            “Oh,” he said quietly.  “When?”

            “Next month.”

            “What about your foot?”

            “It’s healing.”

            “Did you wanna sit down?”

            “I’m fine.”

            “Let’s sit down.  It’s been a long day.”

            I looked at him, giving him an eye roll.

            His grin lit up his face.  “C’mon, Cripple.”

            “I’m nowhere near being a cripple,” I informed him, watching as he picked up both of our beers and walked over to the living room.

            We sat on the couch.

            I went back to being nervous.

            “Man, I just got back and Po is already cracking the whip,” Duo said, handing me my drink.  “Seems like everyone’s been working overtime since our little kidnapping.”

            “We’ve been trying to track down Easton and the gundams, dealing with the fallout over the mobile suit factory, and… getting you back.”

            “Well I appreciate the last bit.  Being a suspected terrorist in an earth detainment center is just a barrel of laughs and all, but I’m happy to be home.”

            I half-smiled.

            “You have the worst smile,” Duo said, laughing.

            My face went blank.

            Duo was still smiling.  He grazed a finger along my cheek, pausing at my lips.

            “Duo…”

            “You have such nice cheekbones,” he said.  “Did you cut your hair for tonight?”

            “Mari made me,” I mumbled, trying not to get lost in his eyes.  Duo was the good-looking one, everyone thought so.  He had such big blue eyes, and his lashes were long and dark.  Then there was all that improbable hair.  It wasn’t what attracted me to him, but he was certainly nice to look at.  “I don’t even know what tonight is,” I finally said, looking away.

            “I don’t know either,” Duo said, running his finger along my bottom lip.

            My lips parted involuntarily.

            We were kissing again, and I wasn’t sure why.

            This time we weren’t in the safety of the lab.  Mariemaia wasn’t in the next room over, ready to interrupt at a moment’s notice.  This was Duo’s apartment.  This was Duo’s couch.  This was Duo’s hand, pushing my shirt up and trying to take it off.

            I froze.

            He rested his forehead against mine, looking into my eyes.  “What?”

            “Did you want me to come here to have sex?”

            “It wasn’t really a concrete plan, but now that you’re here…”

            I couldn’t even get a handle on Duo wanting to kiss me, and now he wanted to have sex?  “I should go.”

            Duo flopped against the back of the couch.  “Seriously?”

            “I don’t need a pity fuck,” I said coldly.

            He started sputtering.  “That time in the hotel… I was drunk, Heero, come on.  I said a lot of stupid shit.”

            “I don’t know why I even came here,” I said, standing up.

            Duo caught my wrist.  “Don’t go.  Really.  I’ll keep my hands to myself.  Just stay.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I just got home, and I’m exhausted, and all I want is to be with you.”

            “I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head.

            “You keep saying that.”

            “I don’t.”

            “What is there to understand?  I just… like being around you, okay?”

            “Since when?”

            “Since now.”

            I stared at him.

            He let go of my wrist, giving me a pout with big puppy-like eyes.

            “You’re childish,” I informed him, sitting back down against my better judgement.

            “Didn’t have a childhood,” he said jovially.  He picked up his beer again and took a drink.  “You hungry?  I could cook us something.  Or we could order takeout.”

            “You can cook?” I asked suspiciously.

            “Of course I can cook!  What kind of self-respecting person living on their own can’t cook?”

            So Duo cooked for us.

            “You’re not really drinking,” he said as he plated the food.

            “I don’t like beer.”

            “Of course you don’t,” he said, laughing.  “Do you want some frou-frou girly drink?”

            “I don’t know how a drink can have gender.”

            He looked amused as he carried the food to the table.  “Seriously, what do you like?  I’ve got some whiskey, or if you want non-alcoholic I’ve got juice.  Oh, I’ve got a bottle of red that would go nice with the meat.”

            “I like wine.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yes.”

            “Okay, then, wine it is,” Duo said, going back into the kitchen.

            The meal was pleasant.  We started falling into our old familiar banter.  The wine probably helped.

            I finally relaxed.

            “So then Quatre shot me in the head!” Duo concluded his story, laughing.

            “He does that.”

            “Man, I’m never volunteering for one of his experiments again,” he said, reaching over the table to refill my glass.  “You want dessert?”

            “Are you going to whip something up from scratch?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “Yes, if by whip up from scratch you mean open a package of Twinkies.”

            “Twinkies are not dessert.  They don’t even constitute as food.”

            “I take offense to that statement.”

            “I thought you were going to impress me with your culinary mastery.”

            “I thought I already did,” Duo said, gesturing towards our empty plates.  “I’m a good cook, right?  Yeah?  Really good?”

            “Not bad.”

            “Not bad my ass.  Admit it, you’re a little impressed.”

            “I’m a little impressed.”

            Duo grinned.  “Heh.”

            We ended up back at the couch, a terrible action movie playing in the background while we opened a second bottle of wine.

            Duo ate his Twinkies.

            The connection between us was starting to feel familiar.

            “You should try a bite,” Duo said, waving a Twinkie in front of my face.

            “Pass.”

            “It’s better than you think.”

            “Didn’t they stop making these Before Colony because they were so awful?”

            “No, obviously they started making them again After Colony because they’re so great.”

            “Disgusting.”

            “Delicious.”

            I turned away from him and took a sip of wine.  When had the second bottle become empty?  It took a lot to get me drunk, but I was definitely starting to feel tipsy.

            Duo rested his head on my shoulder.

            I looked down at him.

            “Hey, that’s actually a nice smile,” he said, smiling back.  Then he shoved a piece of Twinkie into my mouth.

            I glowered at him.

            He sat up, grinning.  “It’s already in your mouth, you might as well try it.”

            I caught him by the waist, sealing our lips together.  Then I tried to push the Twinkie into his mouth.

            Duo started laughing, which made it very easy to get the cake in.

            I gave him a last peck and pulled away.

            He was laughing so hard he started choking.

            “See, those things are deadly,” I said, patting his back.

            “Yeah, when you force them into someone’s mouth with your tongue!”

            “But forcing them in with fingers is fine?”

            “It’s more sanitary.”

            “Hn.”

            “Hn yourself,” Duo said, straddling my lap.

            I may have made a tactical error.


	15. Chapter 15

            I was drunk on Heero Yuy.

            He was apparently drunk on my cheap wine.

            “You kissed me,” I said, nudging his nose with mine.

            “Look who’s talking,” he muttered.  His cheeks were flushed and he was looking at the couch like it was very interesting.

            I leaned in and kissed his neck.

            He gave a little shiver.

            I chewed on my lip.  “I don’t know why I fought this for so long.”

            “Fought what?” he asked, trying to squirm away from me.

            “Your sexiness.”

            His expression went flat.  “Can you stop already?”

            “What?” I complained.  “Things were just getting good.”

            “This was a mistake,” he said, and this time he removed me from his lap.

            Goddamn he was strong, even with his injuries.  It was kind of embarrassing.

            “Heero,” I said, sprawling out on my back and giving him my best come-hither look.

            He closed his eyes.

            “Heero,” I repeated, letting my voice drop lower.

            “I don’t want to sleep with you,” he said.

            “Why not?”

            “Because then it’d be over.”  He looked sad as he said it.

            “What kind of slut do you take me for?” I complained, kicking him in his thigh.

            “The one-night stand kind.”

            “Well, okay, that’s pretty accurate…”

            He finally looked at me, shaking his head.

            I grinned.  “I told you I’d keep my hands to myself if you wanted me to.  But _you_ kissed _me_ , so sorry if I got a little encouraged.”

            “I just feel like you’re making fun of me.”

            “I’m not,” I said, reaching for his hand and trying to tug him towards me.

            Heero stayed like an immovable rock.

            I sat up.  “I’m not,” I repeated, more seriously.

            “Duo, I’m in love with you.”

            “Oh,” I said.  I tried to think of something better.  “Uh, wow.”

            “It’s stupid, I know.”

            “What, hey!  I think I’m insulted by that.”

            He gave me a Look.

            “I think it’s very logical and intelligent to be in love with me,” I said, poking him in the side.

            He made a face.

            “Thank you,” I finally said, giving my poking finger a rest.  “No one’s ever…”

            “Trowa loves you, too.”

            “Where the hell is that coming from?!”

            “He does.”

            “He does not!”

            “You two would make more sense.”

            “Trowa is my best friend.  He doesn’t… we’re not…  Why are you so weird?!”

            “Because I was experimented on as a child and-”

            “Stop,” I said, tucking his head under my chin and wrapping him in a hug.  “I don’t care that you’re weird.  Except when you say weird things about my best friend being in love with me.  But other than that, I just… I like everything about you Heero.  I like how creepy and awkward you are.  I mean, it drives me crazy, but I like being driven crazy?  I don’t know.  I like you.  A lot.  Okay?”

            “This conversation has stopped making sense.”

            “We’re agreed then,” I said.  “Hugging you is nice,” I added.  “It’d be even nicer if you hugged back.”

            “I’m not a hugger.”

            “You should try it.  Don’t you like me hugging you?”

            “…yes.”

            “Oh ho.  You like this, don’t you?”

            “I just said so, yes.”

            I decided to be quiet for a while and enjoy the moment.

            Heero slowly relaxed into me, his arms curling around my back.

            His hair smelled like the barbershop, but his skin smelled like lab geek, chemicals and cleaning agents.  He used to always smell like gunpowder and motor oil.  “I like your new smell.”

            He looked up at me, giving me that patented ‘Maxwell, you are deranged’ look.

            “Can we make out?”

            The look went up a notch, with the fun addition of a blush.

            I tried to be on my best behavior.  I kept my hands in acceptable places, and contented myself with just kissing.

            The kissing was actually pretty great.  It was usually just a prelude, something to rush through, but Heero made it something new and interesting.

            I didn’t know how long we just sat there and kissed, but when Heero pulled away I was feeling tingly and dazed.  “You’re amazing,” I hummed, nuzzling his neck.

            “I should go…”

            “And you are really bad at this.”

            “It’s late.  We have work tomorrow.”

            “Who cares?”

            “I do.”

            “Well I would really, really like it if you stayed.”

            “Staying is confusing.”

            “I wish it wasn’t,” I said, finding the soft skin above his collarbone and sucking.  It suddenly seemed very important to me that Heero have difficulty tomorrow explaining the hickey I was about to mark him with.

            “Stop that,” he said, putting an end to my handiwork.

            I stuck out my lower lip at him.

            “How do you just not care?” he asked with a frown.

            “Whaddya mean?”

            “What are we even doing here?  What is this?”

            “I dunno.”

            “Well I want to know,” he said, standing up abruptly.  “I’m going to miss the last train.”

            “Wait,” I said, standing up, too.  “I’ll set up the couch, okay?  It’s late, and I don’t want you walking home alone.”

            He gave me what I decided to read as an incredulous look.

            “Sally said Easton might come after us again,” I said, moving towards my room to get some bedding.

            “And…?” Heero said.

            I fussed through my closet, locating everything I needed before moving back into the living room.  “I don’t want you to go through that again.”

            “I can take care of myself.”

            “Yes, we all know that you are the strongest, most intelligent, best little robot boy that ever lived, okay?  But I don’t want you to be in a situation where you hafta be that again.”

            Heero gave me a considering look.

            “You can sleep in my room and I’ll take the couch,” I offered.

            “No.  The couch will be fine.”

            “So you are staying,” I said, pleased.

            “Against my better judgement.”

            I found him a toothbrush and gave him some of my clothes to wear.

            “Oh, this is too precious,” I said with a snicker.

            Heero glowered at me as he rolled up the pant legs to keep from tripping on them.

            “You are so _tiny_.”

            “I could take you in a fight,” he said matter-of-factly.

            “Yeah, probably, but you’re still a shorty.”

            “Good night, Maxwell.”

            “Night, Yuy,” I said, ruffling his hair.

            He didn’t appreciate it.

            I decided that we needed a good night kiss.  It was hard to stop now that we’d started, like a floodgate of sexual attraction had opened up.  I couldn’t understand how I had ever thought that I did not want to kiss Heero.

            I felt like I was interested in my life again.

            Heero was already up and making coffee when I got out of bed.

            “I could get used to this,” I commented, kissing his cheek.

            He gave me a half-smile.

            “You can stay over anytime.”

            “Gray and Brown might get lonely.”

            “What is a gray and a brown?”

            “My hamsters.”

            I cracked up.

            “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

            “Heero Yuy is a hamster owner.”

            “Yes.”

            I started coughing I was laughing so hard.

            He looked uncomfortable, so I hugged his waist and nestled his cheek with mine, trying to stifle my amusement.  “I’m not trying to be mean.  I knew you when you were a suicidal maniac, and now you’re off raising a… family,” I concluded, laughing again.

            He glared back at me, but I could feel the tension easing from his shoulders.

            Maybe we were starting to understand one another a little better.

            Trowa called while we were eating breakfast.  “Hey, Tro-Tro,” I said with my mouth full.

            “Hey, I just heard that you’re home.”

            “Yep, I’m back in black.  How’s Mars?”

            “Desolate.”

            “So you and Daniel aren’t picking up any action?”

            “We caught a small-time drug dealer.”

            “Sounds like a productive trip,” I said.  “Hurry home.”

            “Trying.”

            Heero was frowning.

            “Heero says hi,” I said, trying to play it cool.

            “Why would Heero…?” Trowa started to say.

            I switched the camera on my phone so Trowa could see Heero sitting across from me, eating yogurt.

            A series of complex and confused emotions ran over Trowa’s face.

            “Po said I gotta keep an eye on him so he doesn’t get kidnapped again,” I explained.

            Heero’s frown deepened.

            Trowa was also giving me a funny look.

            “Okay, gotta go, byyyye,” I said, abruptly ending the call.  “Why are you giving me that look?”

            “Is that why I’m here?”

            I didn’t know why I didn’t want Trowa to know, and if I didn’t want Trowa to know, I certainly didn’t know why I’d revealed to him that Heero had spent the night.  “…no…?” I offered.

            He looked sad.

            “Come over again tonight.”

            He stared at me.

            “Or I could go to your place?”

            “No.”

            “I wanna meet Gray and Brown.”

            “I don’t want you to become a part of their lives and have them to start to care about you, only to have you walk out on them.”

            “Are you making a joke?”

            “Yes.”

            I grinned.

            “I’m going to head to work first.”

            “Why don’t we just go together?” I asked with a shrug.

            “That won’t be necessary,” Heero said, standing up and loading his dishes in the dishwasher.

            And then he was gone.

            Work was actually busy.  I was still playing catch-up on our Caracas mission, since I’d been denied so much as a pen and paper while I was in solitary.  Then there was the ongoing search for Easton and the gundams, and trying to uncover who was responsible for the mobile suit factory, and if anyone else in the government was involved.

            I was more interested in going down to the lab to flirt with Heero.

            “Oh, those reports need to go to the lab?” I asked Andrea, taking them out of her hands.  “I’ll do it.”

            She looked at me like I was crazy.

            I sauntered off to the elevator.

            Quatre looked surprised when I came into the lab, but greeted me with a warm smile.

            “Had to bring these reports to Heero,” I said, holding them up.

            “I’ll give them to him,” he offered.  “He’s in the middle of an autopsy right now on the guy who ran the mobile suit factory.”

            “The ‘suicide’?”

            “Yeah, that conclusion doesn’t appear to be holding up despite the ESUN’s protests.  Looks like this whole mobile suit thing runs deep in the government.”

            “Wow, I’m so surprised.”

            “Also played a part in why they wouldn’t let you out.”

            “Great, a government conspiracy.  Hey, but how long do you think Heero’s gonna be?  Po wanted me to give these directly to him.  Very urgent business and all.”

            Quatre squinted at the papers in my hand.  “Aren’t those the monthly expense reports?  Is something wrong?”

            “I don’t ask questions, I just do as I’m told,” I said, holding my hands up.

            Quatre snorted.  “That is the opposite of what you do.”

            “I’m turning over a new leaf after my life of crime,” I said.  “Prison set me straight.”

            “Why do you want to see Heero so badly?” he asked, a grin curling up his lips.

            “I plead the fifth.”

            “Oh my god, is something really going on?” he asked, getting excited.

            “Just bureaucracy and expense reports.”

            Quatre decided to interrupt the autopsy, which got him scolded, and he came back with a disappointed shrug.  “He’ll be busy for a while.”

            “I’ll come back later.”

            “Yes, you definitely should!”

            I went back up to the office, feeling glum.

            “Why do you still have the expense reports?” Andrea asked, confused.

            “They were busy.”

            “You could have just left them on Heero’s desk.”

            “We shouldn’t be leaving important paperwork unattended on people’s desks, Andrea,” I said, my voice raising.

            “What has crawled up your butt lately?” she muttered, going back to work.

            I couldn’t quite answer that question.

            When Heero appeared in the office doorway, I wanted to squeal like a schoolboy.

            “Quatre told me that you had something for me?” he said, shifting uncomfortably.

            “Yes, yes,” I said, grabbing the papers from my desk, and guiding Heero by his arm back out the door.  “Let’s step into my office.”

            “You don’t have an office,” he said flatly.

            I brought him to the supply closet.

            “Duo, I’m very busy and-”

            I threw the expense reports on the floor and kissed him.

            He could have avoided it, but instead he just stood very still.

            “Heero,” I said, poking his stomach.  Goddamn, his abs were hard and perfect.  “I can’t concentrate at work without a midday make out.”

            “This is highly inappropriate,” he said, taking a step back from me and into the copy machine.

            I stayed where I was, chewing on my bottom lip.  Was I being too aggressive?  Was I the only one who was feeling this ridiculous pull?  “Sorry,” I offered quietly.

            Heero pushed up on his toes and kissed me briefly.

            I stared at him.

            “I’ll come over tonight.”

            “Really?” I said, genuinely delighted.

            “Yes, now pick up those expense reports and hand them to me properly.”

            “Yessir!” I said, scrambling over the floor to pick up all the papers.  I grinned as I handed them to him.

            “Thank you, Agent Maxwell,” he said brusquely, exiting the supply room.

            I wished he wasn’t wearing that long lab coat as he went, covering up all of his best assets.

            “Explanation.  Now.”

            I jumped as Hilde came up beside me.  “Jeez, don’t sneak up on a guy.”

            “Duo.”

            “Yeah, uh, so I think I’m dating Heero.”

            “Whaaaaaaaat?!” Hilde cried.

            “No need for overreacting,” I complained, rubbing at my aching eardrums.

            “What other kind of reacting is there to something so implausible?!”

            “I always kinda liked Heero…”

            “No, I mean that it’s implausible that _he’d_ go out with _you_ ,” Hilde clarified.

            “What?!  Come on, who wouldn’t wanna go out with me?!” I protested.  “And also, you know that he has a gigantic crush on me!”

            “I also know how you treat him,” she said coldly.

            “Hil,” I said, giving her big innocent eyes.  “Mistakes were made in the past, but… I… I think I really like him.”

            “This is so weird,” Hilde muttered, shaking her head.

            “Tell me about it.”

            “Don’t hurt him,” she added, punching me in the arm.

            “Yeah, yeah.”

            “I can’t freaking believe this.”

            “Me, either…”


	16. Chapter 16

            I wasn’t quite sure how things had progressed this far.

            We weren’t wearing shirts for some reason, and we’d ended up on the floor.

            “Duo, wait…” I protested feebly even as I kept him pinned under me.

            “What am I waiting for?” he asked, smiling lazily as he caressed his hand up my spine.

            That felt _nice_.  “I don’t know,” I said helplessly.

            He tilted his head, eyes studying me.  “I’ll wait, then.”

            I looked at him, and of course he was beautiful.  Everyone knew that Duo Maxwell was beautiful.  But he was surprisingly patient and kind, putting up with my social and sexual ineptitude.

            I didn’t understand him.          

            “Heero?” he said, breaking the silence after longer than I thought he’d wait.

            I met his gaze.

            “So I really can’t figure it out,” he said.  “Are you a bottom or a top?”

            I knew I was turning red.

            “’Cause I’m versatile, so either is fine, but I was just wondering…”

            I sat up abruptly.

            “Don’t be like that,” Duo protested.

            “I’m not being like anything,” I said, scooching backwards until my back hit the coffee table.

            Duo stayed sprawled out on the rug, relaxed.

            “What are we doing?” I asked.

            He studied my face.  “Well, we were making out, until you fled to the coffee table.”

            “There was no fleeing,” I lied in a mumble.

            Duo raised an eyebrow at me.

            “I don’t know why I’m like this.”

            His expression softened, and he sat up.  He took my good hand in his, his thumb resting lightly along my fingers.  “I didn’t get it at first, but now I kinda do.”

            “How can you understand if I don’t?”

            “What, you sayin’ I’m not as smart as you, Yuy?” he asked.

            “I’m saying that I am myself, so how can you know me better than I know me?” I said, hoping he wasn’t offended.

            He laughed.  Of course he wasn’t offended.  He squeezed my fingers briefly and let go, grabbing my shirt from the floor and tossing it to me.  He pulled on a tank top, leaving his button-up work shirt over the back of the couch where I had previously discarded it.  “Are you staying the night again?”

            “No.”

            “I reaaallly don’t want you walking home alone…”

            “Maxwell.”

            “Yuy.”

            I intensified my frown.

            Duo kissed me.

            I felt myself falling into him again.  “Why do I like you so much?” I muttered, pushing him away.

            “Because I’m roguishly handsome?” he suggested, getting up and wandering over to the kitchen.  He picked up a kettle and started filling it with water.

            I sat at the kitchen table and drank tea with him, watching as the clock moved passed the hour of the last train home.

            Duo set up the couch again, and that’s where I slept.

            I got up in the morning and made coffee and eggs.

            Duo hugged me from behind while I cooked, which I informed him was dangerous.

            It was like it was all completely normal.

            Which didn’t make any sense, because it was all completely abnormal.

            Duo and I were… dating.

            He kept popping into the lab during the day, and somehow convincing me to come to his place after work.

            We spent our entire day off together, just walking around L1.  We _held hands_.

            “I don’t understand what is going on,” I concluded as I let him into my apartment after our date.

            “You’re introducing me to your children,” Duo said, grinning.

            I pushed him against the closed door, yanked him down by the collar of his t-shirt, and kissed him soundly.

            Duo made a muffled sound of surprise, then just gave in, arms sliding over my shoulders.

            All I wanted was to be close to him, every second of every day.  It was so easy to get lost in him and forget everything else, to forget that the world went on after Duo Maxwell.

            “Oh my god, you’re such a nerd,” Duo said, suddenly pushing past me and into the apartment.

            I blinked.

            “You live in an actual library,” he marveled.  He started wandering around the living room, looking at the shelves and shelves of books.  “Oh, hey, the boys.”

            “Gray is the gray one,” I explained unnecessarily.  “Brown is the… brown one.”

            Duo was all smiles, sticking his face against the glass of the cage.

            I pulled out my container of sunflower seeds and handed it to him.

            He shook a couple out and stuck his hand through the top of the cage.  He made this weird, childishly delighted sound when Gray’s mouth touched his fingers, taking the seed.

            “I don’t want them getting too attached to you,” I said.

            “It’s too late, I’m already infatuated with your stupid rodents,” Duo said, handing the other seed to Brown.  “How do they make eating so adorable?”

            Duo Maxwell was in my apartment, feeding my hamsters.

            At some point, I just needed to accept that this was all really happening.

            “Heero, you should sit down,” he said.  He picked up Brown and held him to his chest.

            I stared at him.

            “We did too much walking,” he said, kicking lightly at my leg.  “And don’t you even tell me that you’re fine.”

            “It’s not life-threatening,” I assessed.

            “Oh, well then, by all means, keep walking around on it like an asshole.”

            I frowned.

            Duo laughed as Brown’s whiskers tickled his face.

            I sat on the couch, facing away from him.  I heard the rustle of him returning the hamster to the cage.

            “Don’t sulk,” Duo chided me, sliding his arm around my shoulder as he sat next to me.  He leaned into my neck, kissing it softly.

            “I do not sulk,” I stated flatly.  It felt nice and I started unconsciously tilting my head back, giving him better access.

            “Mm-hm,” he agreed.

            My eyes that had slid shut snapped back open.  I stared at him, gazing up at me with his Cheshire cat grin.  “Why now?” I asked, without really meaning to.

            “Why now what?” Duo repeated, resting his chin on my shoulder.

            “Nothing,” I said.  I turned away, staring at the wall.

            “Hey, what do you like about me?”

            I continued to stare at the wall.  “What do I like about you?”

            “Yeah.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say something nice about me,” Duo said.  I could feel him grinning into my shoulder.  “But apparently you’ve been madly in love with me for fifteen years, so…”

            “It wasn’t madly,” I corrected him.  “It was a childish crush.  Like a teenager has on a celebrity.”

            “A celebrity?!” Duo said, laughing as he wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged me to him.  “I guess I was briefly famous as the terrorist with the braid that got caught.”

            I tried to put it into words.  “You… you’re always _you_.”

            “Yep, I can agree with that.”

            “I mean that you didn’t have to give up yourself to do what we did.”

            Duo was quiet.  He settled me back against his chest, his legs bracketing mine.

            “You never became a monster,” I said, gripping his forearm.  It felt like an anchor.

            “Neither did you,” he said softly in my ear.

            “It scares me,” I whispered.  “When I go quiet.”

            “It scares me a little, too,” Duo said.  He wasn’t making a joke.  “But Heero, that’s not the real you.  That’s not who you are deep down.  It’s what they programmed into you, but it isn’t you.”

            “It _is_ me.  I’ve tried so hard to put it away, to walk away from it, but it always comes back, it always…”

            “Shh…”

            I hadn’t realized that I was hyperventilating.

            Duo held on and rubbed my arms up and down until I was steady again.  “I admire you,” he said quietly.  “You got out of the life.  The rest of us all tried, you know, but we couldn’t do it.”

            “You can never get out.”

            “You’re a freaking hamster owner, Heero.  You can’t get much more out than that.”

            “I don’t see the logic in that extrapolation.”

            “Of course you don’t, because you are a nerd,” Duo said, kissing my temple.  “I want you to stay a nerd.  Forever.  Seriously.”

            “You always make fun of me,” I mumbled, not sure how I was feeling about this conversation.

            “Because I’m dumb,” Duo said.  It almost sounded like a plea.

            I turned my neck to look at him.

            Duo moved his hand to my cheek.  “I’m sorry.  I really am.  I think I was just jealous of you.  I dunno.  And also, I’m dumb.  Did I mention that?  Like did-not-graduate-from-elementary-school dumb.”

            “I’ve always seen you as my equal,” I said.  “As my better.”

            There was something in Duo’s eyes that I couldn’t quite read.  Then he smiled.  “Liar.  During the war you were all, ‘you’re in my way’, and stuff.”

            “This isn’t the war.”

            “Yeah…”

            I laid my cheek against his chest.

            Duo pushed his fingers into my hair, holding me against him.

            I didn’t feel nervous anymore.  I felt a little wary about my emotional display, but Duo made me feel like it was all right.

            “Okay, but seriously,” he said suddenly  “Are you a top or bottom?”

            “Why are you asking me this…?”

            “Because I _need_ to know.”

            “I do not see the necessity.”

            “Human interest,” he said.  “And also, I want to better direct my fantasies.”

            “…neither…”

            “Oh, yeah?” Duo asked, perking up.  “I can work with that.”

            “I mean that I’ve never had sex with a man.”

            “Whaaaaaaaat?”

            I sighed.

            “But you’ve had sex with a woman?!”

            “…yes…”

            “Holy shit.  Tell me more.  Oh my god, was it Relena?!  Please tell me that it _wasn’t_ Relena…”

            “It wasn’t Relena.”

            “Praise Jesus.

            “What’s your problem with Relena?”

            “It’s not a problem with Relena specifically…” Duo said.

            “You two have never gotten along.”

            “Well, remember the time when she invited us to her fancy luxury resort boarding school for rich assholes and all she-”

            “No, Duo, I do not recall such a circumstance.  We attended the Sanc Kingdom’s school of pacifism for free-”

            “Even you were sitting there rolling your eyes at her nonsen-”

            “And look what she’s achieved now.  Total pacifism works.”

            “Except that the ESUN is about to collapse into another war.”

            “I admire her.”

            Duo let out a long-suffering sigh.  “Yeah, yeah, I admire her, too.”

            “Then why do you always have to tear her down?” I asked.  I turned to him, suddenly suspicious.  “Are you harboring some kind of feelings for her?”

            He burst out laughing, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

            I liked his laugh.  Feeling comfortable again, I shifted until we were face-to-face, my legs over his.  “I do understand.  Why you are… distrustful of people born into wealth.”

            “Oh, do you?” Duo asked, framing my face in his hands.

            I looked into his eyes and I felt the distance between us closing.  I remembered what it was like when I first met him, to realize that there were others like me.

            “I don’t hate Relena, and she’s been very helpful with trying to root out the mobile suit-loving faction of the government,” he finally conceded.  “But as much as she tries to act like she gets the _little people_ , she just doesn’t.”

            “She’ll never know what it means to be hungry, to have nothing.”

            “Exactly.”

            “But she knows the pain of seeing her father killed in front of her eyes.”

            Duo made a face at me.

            “She knows firsthand the suffering and destruction that war brings.”

            “Yeah, yeah, yeah, she’s not a complete dolt.”

            “I’ll pass along the compliment the next time I call her.”

            “’Hey, Relena, Duo thinks that you’re not a complete dolt,’” he said, laughing.  “I said I admire her, what more do you want from me?”

            “Nothing,” I said, undoing the tie on his braid.

            Duo looked at me, an arch to his brow.

            “I want to see it.”

            “Go ahead,” he said, helping me loosen the braid.

            I ran my fingers through it, watching it unravel.

            “Sally said I should cut my hair,” he said casually.

            I probably looked affronted.

            He grinned.  “I’m not gonna.  Most likely.  But even with the government exonerating me, everyone still saw that video of me piloting Minerva.  Sally said the braid gives me away.”

            “Is that why you’re always wearing sunglasses at night and that ridiculous hat?”

            “My hat is not ridiculous,” Duo said, offended.

            His hat was definitely ridiculous.

            “You’re drooling,” he said, looking amused.

            “I am not,” I said, but I subconsciously wiped at my mouth.  “You’re really beautiful.”

            “Well aren’t you the charmer?” Duo said, shaking out the last of his braid with a grin.  “This is going to be a pain in the ass to deal with later…”

            I ran my fingers through the never-ending strands.

            “Maybe I’ll cut my hair like yours.”

            I glared at him.

            “No?”

            “No.”

            “Anyway, are you gonna tell me about this alleged woman that you slept with?” he asked.  “Or is it women plural?  Oh my god, is it women plural?!”

            “I had a relationship with one of my professors while I was getting my doctorate.”

            “Holy shit, really?”

            “I don’t think it’s such an unlikely story,” I said, still mesmerized by all of Duo’s beautiful hair.  It was a little snarly, but soft to the touch.

            “You slept with a professor.  It sounds like the plot of a porno or something.”

            “It was hardly an illicit affair.”

            “You _slept_ with your _professor_.”

            “She was in charge of the forensics department, but I only had her as a teacher when I was an undergraduate.”

            “Oh, well in that case, _you still freaking slept with your professor_.”

            I shifted, starting to feel uncomfortable, but not wanting to stop touching Duo’s hair.

            “You’re never what I expect,” Duo said, touching my cheek.  “Damn.  Sleeping with an older woman of power.”

            I cast my eyes to him.

            He thumbed down my cheekbone.  “I feel like you were the bottom in that relationship.”

            “What is your obsession with tops and bottoms?” I muttered.

            “I just can’t even imagine what our sex life is going to be like.”

            My stomach twisted in knots.

            Duo stretched his neck to kiss my forehead.  “I hope I find out soon,” he said softly.

            I couldn’t be any redder.

            “But I guess I just hafta wait,” he said, pinching my cheek before letting go of it.  “You want some tea?”

            I nodded slowly, still in the throes of embarrassment.

            “At your service,” he said, getting up from under me and going over to the kitchen.

            I watched him go through the cupboards as he searched for the kettle, brown hair everywhere.

            It really did make a mess, I noted as I pulled strand after strand from my jeans.

            But it was part of what made Duo _Duo_.


	17. Chapter 17

            It was a lazy Saturday, and Heero was in my kitchen making us breakfast like usual.

            “You’re the perfect house husband,” I informed him, yawning and sitting down at the table.  There was a steaming mug of coffee at my place, all ready for me.

            “I must have missed when we got married,” he muttered.

            I grinned, breathing in the heavenly aroma of my coffee.  “Well, you sleep here almost every night.”

            “The marriage hasn’t been consummated.”

            “Very true.”

            He turned off the stove and brought over a plate filled with a huge omelet and sausage on the side.  He put down a bowl of salad for himself, none for me, because who the hell eats salad for breakfast?

            “Whaddya wanna do today?” I asked around a mouthful of food.

            Heero eyed me.

            I swallowed and flashed him a smile.

            “I thought you were going to meet Trowa at the spaceport.”

            “Yeah, but that’s not until the afternoon,” I said.  “You should come.”

            “No thank you.”                                       

            I rolled my eyes.  “Our worlds have to collide eventually.”

            “Trowa is displeased that we are dating.”

            “Where do you even get that from, you two don’t talk,” I said with a sigh, spearing a sausage and taking a savage bite.

            Heero took a bite of the omelet, eyes avoiding mine.

            “Trowa’s one of my best friends,” I said, nudging his fork with mine as he tried to continue eating.

            “I’m aware.”

            “I really like how things are going and I want them to be more going,” I said, stealing his hand and kissing his unbandaged fingertips.  The surgery had gone well, but the doctors still didn’t know if it would heal completely.

            “Things are only going well because we’re always alone,” Heero said, taking his hand back.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            He didn’t answer, eating his salad.

            I rolled my eyes.  “Do you think I’m embarrassed by you?”

            “Of course I do,” he said.

            I stared at him incredulously.

            “Don’t give me that look,” he said, frowning at me.  “You hate the way I talk, you hate the way I dress-”

            “I don’t _hate_ those things,” I protested.  “I think you’re cute.”

            “When we’re alone,” he said.  “And really?  _Cute_?” he repeated, wrinkling his nose.

            “Freaking _adorable_.”

            Heero’s face said clearly, ‘you disgust me.’

            I was getting a little smitten.

            It had been more than a month since I’d come back from earth.  The more time we spent together, the more relaxed Heero got.  Also the more sarcastic and bitchy, but I liked that about him, always had.  He was starting to fit into my life like there had always been a space for him.

            Except he was right.  We never went anywhere.  We didn’t get drinks at Marty’s with the other Preventers.  We didn’t hang out a Hilde’s or go visit the Sweepers at the docks.

            “Maybe I just wanna keep you to myself.”

            “You’re embarrassed.”

            “Don’t say it so matter-of-factly!”

            “How else should I express a fact?”

            I waved my fork at him irritably.  “I asked you to come meet Trowa with me, didn’t I?”

            “Yes, I understand that,” he said, stabbing the last piece of sausage and offering it towards me.

            I waved it back to him.

            “I’m the one saying that I don’t want to ruin everything by dredging up how little our worlds fit together,” he said, taking a forlorn bite of sausage.

            “Come on, Heero,” I said, nursing my coffee.  “That’s _why_ we work, isn’t it?  Opposites attract, and all that jazz.”

            “Your insistence on me integrating into your life implies that this relationship is becoming serious.”

            “Huh,” I said.  “I guess so.”

            Heero’s cheeks tinged red.

            Crap, he was the cutest little dork.  “I can’t even remember the last time I dated a guy for more than a month,” I said, suddenly realizing how serious this really was.  I shook my head, deciding not to think about it.  I was more the type to go with the flow.  “Hey, how long were you with Hot Professor Lady?”

            “A year and a half,” Heero said.  “Until she found someone younger and more suitable.”

            “Damn.”

            “I always knew that I was being used,” he said with a shrug.

            “And you’ve never been with anyone else?”

            “No.”

            “Not even a one-night stand?”

            “No.”

            “You find it hard to trust people.”

            “Yes.”

            “But you trust me.”

            “…sometimes.”

            “Only sometimes?!”

            “Only sometimes,” Heero confirmed solemnly.

            “I’m very trustworthy.”

            He looked at me.

            “I am.”

            “Sometimes,” he agreed, kissing me as he bent down to pick up the empty dishes.

            I caught him, making it more lingering.

            Heero put the dishes in the dishwasher, then moved to the couch, picking up a medical journal from his stack and starting to read.

            I went to wash my hair.

            He was on his second journal when I came out.

            I held up my brush to him.

            Heero smiled his real smile, putting his journal aside.

            I sat between his legs on the floor.

            Heero went to work.

            “Are you straight?” I asked, eyes closed as I luxuriated.

            “What?”

            “Are you straight?  Heterosexual?”

            “I thought that my physical attraction to you was obvious.”

            “Yeah, but mostly you just seem to like my hair, and if I’m being honest with myself, my hair is pretty girly.”

            Heero continued to brush the wet mess with smooth, even strokes, careful not to pull my scalp.  “I think you’re masculine.”

            “Thanks, I guess?”

            “Did you want me to say that you’re girly?”

            “Just makin’ conversation.”

            “Am I not… doing something right…?”

            “Of course not,” I said, brushing off his self-doubts.  It was obvious he still felt out of his element in our relationship sometimes.  “You do everything so very right.  Except when you get sassy with me.”

            “Sassy?”

            “You have a lot of sass, Heero, it’s just a part of you.”

            “What are you even going on about?” he muttered, dividing my hair into three sections and starting to braid.

            “You know how I like to ramble.”

            He laughed, just a puff of air.

            I reached back, handing him an elastic.

            He tied off the braid, dropping it over my shoulder.

            I leaned back my head so I could look up at him.  “What should we do for the rest of the morning?”

            “Just relax?” Heero suggested.

            “Does relaxing involve tongues?”

            “Not usually, no.”

            “It should,” I said, getting up and sitting next to him on the couch.  I gave him a nice, chaste kiss.

            Heero smiled like I’d given him the world.

            I really couldn’t understand what it was that he liked about me, but I just went with it.

            We relaxed.

            Heero told me about the boring medical journal he was reading, but then it actually got interesting and we got into a spirited debate about the merits of genetic engineering.

            We somehow ended up in the kitchen, genetically engineering an army of gingerbread people.

            “Hope Tro likes satanic gingerbread love children,” I said, sticking some of our more ridiculous designs into a tupperware container.

            Heero shook his head.

            We went to the spaceport together.

            Trowa and Daniel came out of baggage claim, laden down with bags.

            “Trowaaaaa!” I cried, spontaneously leaping at him.

            Trowa threw down his bags with a long-suffering look, microseconds before catching me.

            “I missed yoooou!” I said as he swung me around once, then promptly deposited me on the ground.

            “Didn’t miss this at all,” Trowa said flatly.

            “You just wanna play it cool in front of Daniel, I get it,” I said, picking up one of his bags.  “Goddamn, do you have anvils in here?”

            “Yes, I think the stock market will soon be moving towards Mars anvils, and I wanted to get ahead of the curve with my investments.”

            “Hey, Yuy,” Daniel said.  “What’re you doing here?”

            Heero looked like he didn’t have an answer for that.

            “He came to carry all your bags with his superhuman strength,” I said.

            Daniel gave me a strange look.

            Trowa was giving Heero an unreadable look, but then he shifted into his usual blank-faced self.  “Agent Warner, do you think you can carry more bags than Dr. Yuy?”

            Daniel looked like he wanted to say, ‘hell yeah’, but didn’t want to hurt Heero’s feelings.  “Well…”

            He was already carrying three heavy bags, so we gave him one of Trowa’s and he stumbled from the weight.  When we added a second, he was out.

            “Okay, Heero’s turn,” I said, directing Daniel to hand Heero his bags.

            Heero looked at us all funny.  “I’m not sure I understand the point of this exercise.”

            “It’s fun,” I said, taking a bag from Daniel and handing it to Heero.

            Trowa handed him another bag.

            We started piling them on top of one another.

            Heero just stared at us with an unimpressed look.

            Daniel gawked.

            Once Heero was holding all six bags, we declared him the winner.

            “Holy shit, Yuy,” Daniel said.  “You’re not even breaking a sweat.”

            “They’re not that heavy,” he said with an uncomfortable shrug.

            “Is he for serious right now?” Daniel asked me.

            “Heero Yuy is always serious,” I informed him.

            Heero gave me a long look.

            I took a bag from him, giving him a messy smooch on the cheek.

            Now Daniel was really staring.

            Heero’s look got more uncertain.

            Trowa took his bags and moved towards the door.

            “So are you two doing it?” Daniel asked, waffling a little under the weight of his returned bags.

            “Doing what?” I asked, laughing nervously.  Oh, no, I was not playing this cool at all.  I was off my game.

            “Sexual penetration.”

            “Oh, uh, no,” I said.  “But I want to.  Penetrate.  Or be penetrated.”

            Heero followed after Trowa abruptly.

            “Smooth,” Daniel said.  “So really?  You and Yuy?”

            “We’re kinda… ya know, dating,” I said, rubbing at the back of my neck.

            “You seem less cool.”

            “What?!”

            “Why don’t you just say that you’re dating and stop looking guilty about it?  Your ‘I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks’ attitude is what used to make you cool.”

            “ _Used to_?!”

            Daniel moved towards the door.

            “Hey, Dan?” I said.

            He turned to look back at me.

            “I think I’m falling in love with Heero Yuy,” I said, meeting his eyes evenly.

            Daniel grinned at me.  “See?  Much cooler.”

            “Some might even say the coolest.”

            “I wouldn’t go that far.”

            “Dick.”

            “The biggest.”

            “I don’t know how to take that…”

            “Take it in the most complimentary way possible towards me and my body.”

            I rolled my eyes, stepping into the fresh air.

            Heero and Trowa were already getting into a cab.

            “So, how was Mars, anyway?” I asked as we walked towards them.

            “Ah, you know, a desert wasteland with nothing to see or do,” he said.

            A man suddenly ran at the cab and slammed the doors shut.  The car zoomed away.

            Daniel had his gun trained on the man, while I raced after the cab, dialing Une and screaming the license plate at her.

            This could not be for fucking real.


	18. Chapter 18

            I took a deep breath and counted back from ten.  I’d known it was just a matter of time before Aaron Easton came for me again.

            Trowa tapped against the back of my hand.

            ‘I’m fine,’ I tapped back to him.  I was tired of being the person that everyone worried about in a crisis.

            I counted back from ten again.

            ‘My gun is at the small of my back,’ he tapped to me.

            ‘There’s a sedan following us,’ I tapped.  ‘Risky.’

            Trowa’s face remained expressionless, but I knew that his mind was running through all of our options.

            “You’re being nice and quiet,” the driver commented.  “Not that I mind, but I can’t help but think that you’re planning something.  And I really recommend that you not be planning anything.”

            “I’ll take your recommendation under advisement,” Trowa said.

            The driver frowned.

            Trowa and I just stared at him blankly.

            It seemed to piss him off more.

            We circled around back to the airport and pulled up to the employee entrance.  We were waved through without any kind of ID check.

            ‘Inside job,’ Trowa tapped to me.

            ‘Airplane hangar,’ I tapped back.

            I felt his fist tighten.

            We both knew what was coming.

            “It’s so good to see you again, Dr. Yuy,” Aaron said, stepping towards the car.

            Trowa and I got out slowly, our arms raised.

            “How does one smuggle not one but two gundams into the L1 spaceport?” Trowa murmured.

            “It pays to have friends in high places,” Aaron said.  “What do you think of them, Trowa Barton?”

            Trowa was silent.  He was, in fact, in a full-on rage, but no one in the room could recognize it.

            Except for Aaron and me.

            Aaron smiled.  “You’ve certainly grown up.”

            Trowa had joined the Preventers four years ago because of the man standing in front of us.  A splinter group of Aaron’s L3 Brotherhood had started attacking military targets throughout the colony, including a circus performance at the L3 base.

            Catherine could no longer perform her acrobatic act, though her knife throwing was as sharp as ever.

            _‘We can’t ever leave the fight,’_ Trowa had said to me after he joined.

            _‘I don’t agree,’_ I’d said, shaking my head.  _‘Cathy needs you.’_

            _‘She needs me to protect the earth sphere.’_

            We didn’t talk much after that.

            Trowa stared down Aaron, while I stared at the gundams.

            I couldn’t help it.  I was mesmerized.

            All I wanted to do was fly.

            I’d tried my hand at getting my shuttle pilot license, but it just wasn’t the same.

            Trowa pinched me subtly.

            I turned my eyes back to Aaron.

            He was smiling at me now.  “You haven’t been able to forget her, have you?”

            While Trowa was the infiltration specialist, I knew that being faced with the man who had done so much damage to his family would make it implausible for Trowa to play along with him.

            It had to be me.

            “I haven’t,” I said.

            I wondered if I was acting.

            “There’s another mobile suit factory, on one of the L1 satellites.”

            “How is that possible?” Trowa asked flatly.

            “I’ll show you.”

            There were surveillance photos spread across the floor.

            “Fuck,” Trowa muttered, turning his back to the pictures.

            We both knew that this was the beginning of the end of peace.  One secret mobile suit factory might be explained away, but two was on its way to a conspiracy.

            “Why risk bringing us in?” I asked.

            “Because of that look in your eye,” Aaron said.

            “Because you can’t find anyone good enough to pilot a gundam,” Trowa said.

            “Well, there’s that, too,” Aaron conceded with a smile.  “Even the veterans from the war are just lacking that certain je ne sais quoi.”

            “And you think that shooting Yuy has endeared your cause to us?”

            “I think that these photos have endeared my cause to you,” Aaron said, gesturing to all the photos of what was clearly a mobile suit factory.  The satellite photos put it a shuttle hop away from the main cluster.  “Besides, Heero understood.  He knew that I was doing what had to be done for the mission.”

            Trowa rolled his eyes, turning to me.

            I didn’t say anything.

            “He _shot_ you,” he said.

            “I am aware.”

            “Then why are you listening to him?”

            I stayed silent.

            Aaron’s smile widened.

            A guard came rushing into the hangar, the other guards parting the way for him.  “The Preventers are on their way.”

            “Of course they are,” Aaron said with a shake of his head.  “Heero?  Are you coming?”

            “No,” Trowa said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

            “I wasn’t asking you, No-Name.”

            Trowa’s grip tightened.

            “I have to do this,” I said, stepping out of it easily.

            “You’re still injured.”

            “I’ve had worse.”

            Our eyes locked.

            I could see Trowa’s implicit trust in that look, and I didn’t want to betray it.

            We were taken to separate transports, and both ships took off without waiting for clearance.

            I could see Minerva in the cargo bay, her siren song calling to me.

            Our phones had been left behind in the hangar.  There would be no tracking us once we hit space.

            I wondered what I was doing.

            Easton went on and on about the betrayal of the government and the suppression of the colonies.

            He wasn’t wrong.

            We arrived at the colony, designated L1Z196, and our transports were ushered into hidden hangars.

            “The ESUN knows that we’re coming,” one of the men on the ground rushed to inform Aaron.

            “Then we have to make this quick,” he said.  He turned to me.  “Will you pilot her?”

            “Yes.”

            So I did.

            It was like riding a bike, as the saying went.  Minerva went through her power-up while I strapped myself into the pilot chair and familiarized myself with the setup of the controls.  It was very similar to the Wing Zero and simple enough to figure out.

            Activating the Zero System was nothing.  It showed me how to cut through the colony safely, avoiding civilians while still being able to take out the factory in the most efficient way possible.  I had mastered the system, and I used it to my advantage.

            I did what it told me, and took out the factory.

            Aaron didn’t ask me to film a video, because there wasn’t time.

            The factory was in flames behind me, but the military surrounded me with their tanks and helicopters.

            I ignored them, taking to the sky.

            There was another factory on L5.

            Aaron wanted me to come back, to plan, to plot, to make sure that the each factory was exposed in the most damning way possible for the ESUN.

            “That’s not what Minerva wants,” I told him.

            “Yuy, you bring her back or I will activate the self-detonation.”

            I just laughed.

            He quickly realized that the self-detonation system was no longer active.

            I cut off all communication, and I took out the factory on L5.

            There was one more on earth.  It was in Finland of all places.

            The new mobile suits were waiting for me.  Most of the pilots were inexperienced and easily immobilized.  The war pilots were more of a challenge.  I could destroy them easily, but Minerva didn’t want that.

            So it took time.

            I hadn’t slept in days.

            The factory was finally demolished.

            I tried to rest, but a voice kept crackling through my com.

            “Heero Yuy, answer me, dammit!”

            “I just want to sleep,” I said.

            “They are coming to take you into custody.”

            “It’s okay.  It’s over now.”

            “Heero, we need you.”

            “No one needs me.”

            A frustrated growl.  “Take the gundam to Sanc.”

            “I can’t.”

            “I am giving you an order.”

            “I can’t.”

            “Heero!”

            I blinked, snapping out of my trance.  “Une?”

            She sounded wrecked.  “Take the damn gundam to Sanc and seek sanctuary there until we can get you out.”

            “I won’t put Relena in danger-”

            “I am giving you an order.”

            “I’m not a soldier.”

            “I am giving you an order!” she screamed.

            I took the gundam to Sanc.

            Maybe I wasn’t quite the master of the Zero System that I thought.  Or maybe I was.  No one had been killed in any of my attacks.  It was improbable.  The Zero System so far exceeded the capabilities of man.

            I almost flew over Sanc.  Minerva and I belonged together.  I knew if I landed, that they would try to take her away from me.

            Look what we could achieve.  Fighting without killing.  Peace.  We could achieve peace.  I could see it, I could see the future, and-

            I crash-landed.  A reflex, an escape, the only way that I could get away from her.

            Duo pulled me out, looking hysterical.

            “I’m fine,” I said, not understand his concern.

            “You’re bleeding, you idiot,” he said, crying and smiling and screaming.

            “What are you doing?” I said, starting to panic as he disconnected me from Minerva.  I was stronger than him.  I could make him stop.

            He caught my face in his hands, looking directly into my eyes.

            “I want to be with Minerva,” I whispered to him.

            “We just have to do some repairs on her,” he soothed me.  “You crashed pretty hard.  We’ll fix her up, okay?”

            “I’ll do it,” I said, shaking my head.

            “We gotta fix you up, too,” he said, thumbing along my forehead and then showing me the blood.

            “I’ll be okay,” I said.  “Let me do it.”

            “Heero, please, just five minutes, just see the doctor for five minutes, please, please…”

            “You look scared.”

            “You’re bleeding a lot.”

            “It’s not serious.”

            “Of course not, because you’re made out of gundanium,” he said, trying to smile.  His eyes still looked scared.

            I didn’t want him to look scared.

            “Just five minutes,” I said.

            Relief flooded through his expression as he eased me out of the cockpit.

            Minerva was on her back, so we had to travel across her chest before ziplining to the ground.

            “Heero!” Relena called, rushing over to us while we were still mid-air.

            “Only five minutes,” I said to her, before passing out.


	19. Chapter 19

            I stayed by Heero’s bedside, absently fingering the handcuffs that chained him to the bedrails.  I wondered if they could hold him.

            He appeared to be sleeping.  His body had shut down as soon as we touched the ground.  He’d been attached to the Zero System for days, without any break or sleep.

            I was worried.

            Eventually his eyes opened, cautiously taking in his surroundings.

            “Hey,” I said, getting up from the window seat and walking over to him.

            “Am I under arrest?” he asked, his voice scratchy from disuse.  He cleared his throat, rattling the handcuffs as he shifted.

            “Not yet, but you will be as soon as the ESUNBI gets their hands on you.”

            “They let you go.”

            “I’m on a terrorist watch list.”

            “That’ll make flying difficult.”

            I laughed, which surprised both of us.

            Heero looked so tired.

            “How are you?” I asked, pushing my fingers through his bangs and resting my hand in against his forehead.

            He looked at me measuringly.  “My injuries are limited and do not cause me much discomfort.”

            “God give me strength,” I muttered, looking up to the heavens like Sister Helen always used to do when I was trying her.  “Let me just come out and say it.  Did the Zero System drive you crazy, or are you mentally okay?”

            There was a pause.

            “I don’t have sufficient data to answer that.”

            I chewed on my lip.  “Okay, you’re probably gonna stay handcuffed to this bed, then.”

            “I understand.”

            “Heero, shit.”

            “I don’t understand, is that a command?”

            I cracked up.

            Heero gave me a small smile.

            I smoothed my fingers through his hair.  “You’re gonna be okay,” I decided.

            “I don’t want to give you that false impression.”

            “For fuck’s sake…”

            “Did they recover the other gundam?”

            “No.”

            “Trowa?”

            “No.”

            “You want to go look for him.”

            “Yeah, I do,” I agreed.  “But Une sent me here.”

            “I’m sorry,” he said, shifting away from my hand.

            I sighed.  “I wanted to be here,” I said, chasing him until I could dig my fingers through his greasy mop top again.  “Wufei and Sally are leading the rescue mission.  It’s in good hands.”

            “I could find him.”

            “I don’t doubt that,” I said.  “But you need to rest and heal.”

            “You’re worried about Trowa.  About your best friend.  I could find him.”

            “Let’s just let Sally and Wu do their job, okay?”

            “If you let me into Minerva-”

            My hand froze.

            Heero knew that he shouldn’t have said that, turning his face away from me.

            I was really worried now.  “I did my damnedest to keep you away from that machine.  Why didn’t you just let Trowa…?”

            “Trowa wouldn’t have.”

            “Don’t make it out like that.  You wanted to pilot it.  You always wanted to pilot it, from the moment you first saw it.”

            “Is that why you insisted on doing it?  To keep me away from her?” he asked, struggling against the handcuffs.

            “Yes, Heero, I thought that was obvious,” I said, laying my hand over his, trying to calm him.

            His fist tensed in my hold.

            “You could break out of these, couldn’t you?” I marveled.

            “It’s a possibility.”

            “That is inexplicably attractive to me,” I said, trying to make him smile.

            He didn’t.

            I tried to think of something to say to break up the tension.

            There was a tentative knock on the door.

            “Yeah?” I said, not looking away from Heero.

            It was like someone had flipped his off switch, and nobody was home.

            “Can I come in?” Relena asked.

            “…I guess…?” I offered.

            Relena came in, eyes searching at the less-than-friendly welcome.  Then they latched on the handcuffs.  She chewed on her bottom lip, which somehow diminished the perfect privileged bureaucrat look that she had going on.

            I kept my barbs about her pantsuit to myself and brushed past her on my way to the door.  “I’ll give you two a moment.”

            “Duo,” Heero said, his voice hard and commanding like it used to be.

            I ignored him like I used to and shut the door.

            My phone was filled with missed calls and messages.

            I called the commander back first, and had to face her disappointment, like Heero losing his mind was somehow my fault.

            When I suggested that to her, she countered, “Well, you _are_ sleeping with him.”

            I sputtered incoherently for a while.  “Okay,” I said, calming down.  “First of all, I haven’t even had the pleasure, thank you very much.  Second of all, I cannot even put into words how offended I am that you would imply that sleeping with me is somehow related to mental incapacitation.”

            “Are you done, Agent?” Une asked, giving me a no-nonsense look.

            “You started it!”

            She stared me down so hard that I almost believed that she and Heero were related by blood.

            “I’m done, ma’am,” I said, contrite.

            “Take care of him,” she said, as flat and crisp as ever, but now I could see the worry in her eyes.

            “Of course,” I said.  “Of course,” I repeated.

            She nodded and ended the call.

            I called Hilde next.

            “Hey, dum-dum,” she said cheerfully.

            “Why is that our new greeting?”

            “I think it lightens the mood.”

            “Do I get to call you dum-dum?”

            “Try it,” she said with a threatening grin.

            I sighed loudly.

            “How’s Heero?” she asked, her expression softening.

            “Not good.  Wants me to let him pilot the gundam again so he can find Trowa.”

            “Well… it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard…” Hilde hedged.

            “I had to physically remove him from the cockpit because he wouldn’t come out willingly.”

            “Okay, then that’s probably not the direction that we want to be heading in…”

            “I’m really fucking worried, to be honest,” I said.  “He’s like War Heero, only an inch taller.”

            “That’s not fair,” Hilde said, shaking her head.  “He’s at least two inches taller.”

            “Don’t make jokes,” I said through a smile.

            “You started it.”

            “I regret it, shit,” I said, dropping my forehead against my palm.  “I just want him to be happy and healthy and gundam-free.”

            “You’re really in love, aren’t you?” Hilde asked, looking surprised.

            “What?!” I said.  “No!  Of course not!  I barely know the guy, and you’re over here talking about _love_.  God, Hil, take a step back.”

            “Sure.  Well, I need to get back to helping Quatre comb over the Z196 hangars for any hint of where Easton went off to,” she said.  “Take care of Heero, and take care of yourself, yeah?”

            We said our goodbyes and ended the call.

            Relena had appeared in the hallway and sank down onto the floor next to me.

            I turned to her as I locked my phone.

            “I was going to ask if the handcuffs were necessary,” she said, smiling at me nervously.  “Then Heero begged me to let him go to where we’re repairing Minerva.”

            “Have you been able to get a craft to send her into the sun?” I asked.  I was surprised that Relena and I were having a normal conversation.  Well, as normal as talking about your boyfriend being crazy could be.

            “That girl from your office, Andrea?  She’s trying to get something sent over from Eastern Europe,” she said, playing with the hem of her blazer.

            “Good, good,” I said, looking the other way.

            “Duo?”

            “Mm?”

            “Is he going to be okay?”

            “…I dunno.”

            “Shit.”

            I burst out laughing.

            “Yes, I can curse, how hilarious,” Relena said, crossing her arms over her chest and slouching against the wall.

            “As long as you understand,” I said, wiping tears from the corners of my eyes.  “God, I needed that.”

            She bumped her shoulder into mine.

            “Are we being friendly?” I asked.

            She sighed.  “Yes.”

            “Why’re you sighin’ then?”

            “Because we never seem to get off on the right foot.”

            “We’re just really different,” I said.

            “You and Heero are ‘really different’,” she countered.

            “Yeah, and he drives me crazy.”

            She smiled at that.  “You really love him, don’t you?”

            “Why do people keep using that word?” I asked, throwing my hands up in the air.

            “So you don’t love him?”

            “I’m very fond of him.”

            “He’s very fond of you, as well.”

            “Good to know.”

            “Great.”

            We sank back into silence.

            “He was asking for you,” she said, standing up.  “But if you need a break…”

            “Really?  He asked for me?”

            “Something about him finding Trowa?” she said.

            “Christ.”

            “Don’t we want to find Trowa?” Relena asked, looking confused.

            “Mr. Yuy over there wants to get back into the friggin’ gundam to do it,” I said, gesturing at the door to his room.

            “Shit,” Relena said.

            “Shit,” I agreed.

            “But do you really think that using the gundam would help you find Trowa?” she asked.

            “I mean, the Zero System is freakishly psychic, but there’s no guarantee…”

            “So why don’t you do it?”

            “Me?” I said.  “Oh, no.  That’s not a good idea.”

            “I saw you on TV, and you seemed to handle piloting the thing just fine,” she said.

            “Yeah, but what you didn’t see on TV was how fucking amazing it was to be inside of a gundam again,” I said.  “I… I felt like it was everything that was missing from my life, and then Heero got shot, and all I could think about was getting him safe, but if I got in that cockpit again…”

            “Heero got shot?” Relena said, a crease forming between her brows.

            “He didn’t tell you?”

            “He called me after he got back to L1 and said that everything had gone well,” she said, sighing.  “I should have known better.  His definition of well is… questionable.”

            “Christ, ’Lena, he had a fucking hole in his hand and he was staring up into the goddamn camera saying, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine’ as he practically bled out.”

            Relena shook her head, a smile playing on her lips despite the sadness in her eyes.  “That’s Heero.”

            “Yeah, I better go check on him,” I said, going over to the closed door.

            “I’ll be in my office,” she said.

            I nodded and went back into the room.

            Heero glared at me from his bed.

            “Did you need something?” I asked, breezing over to his side.

            “To relieve my bladder,” he said, and it sounded sullen.  Good god he was adorable sometimes.

            “Well, that’s a conundrum,” I said, rattling one of his handcuffs.  “Can I trust you, or is it better for me to get one of Relena’s expensive vases for you to pee in?”

            “You would enjoy that.”

            “You didn’t answer my question.”

            He looked at me.

            I pulled the key from my pocket.  “I’m trusting you,” I said.

            “I could have broken out of them if I’d wanted to.”

            “That is still so hot.  You wanna test out Relena’s guest bed?”

            “I do not understand you sometimes,” he murmured.  He reclaimed his wrists and stood up.

            I pointed him to the bathroom down the hall, then sat on his bed and waited.  He was probably okay.  I mean, he seemed fine.  He hadn’t completely lost it?

            He came back.

            “You’re back,” I said, grinning.

            “You were worried.”

            “A little.”

            “I was peeing.”

            “I didn’t even know that robot boys peed.”

            “Shut up,” he said, scowling and shoving me aside.

            I put my arm around him as he sat next to me.

            He sat there stiffly.

            “Come here,” I said, pulling him into me.

            He stopped resisting, letting his head fall on my shoulder.

            “You’re really okay?” I asked, rubbing his arm up and down.

            “Yes.”

            “If I told you where Minerva was right now, would you go running to her?”

            “Yes.”

            I rested my head against his, squeezing him to me.  “It’s not like I don’t get it.  If you hadn’t been shot…”

            He turned slightly, looking up at me.

            “Gundams are still very attractive to me,” I said.  “Even if I’m not a _Gundam 00_ fetishist.”

            He growled at that.

            I grinned, kissing his forehead.  I felt it wrinkle under my lips.

            “You’ve been very… affectionate…” he finally said.

            “Aren’t I always?”

            “I feel like you’re overcompensating.”

            “Overcompensating for what?!” I asked, pulling away.

            “Nothing, I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head.  He was starting to look small again.

            I wondered if that was good or bad.  “You wanna rest some more?  Or you want something to eat?”

            “I do need some nutrition.”

            “I’ll get you something,” I said, squeezing his hand as I got up.

            Relena’s ‘house’ was more a maze, but I found someone willing to show me to the kitchen.  I made a sandwich, because that was all I had the patience for, and somehow found my way back to Heero’s room.

            Of course he wasn’t there.

            “Goddammit, Heero,” I muttered, chomping down on the sandwich as I canvassed the house.

            I found him out in the barn where we’d hidden Minerva.

            “You weren’t fixing her,” he accused.

            “Of course we weren’t fixing her!”

            “Runs, hides, but never lies my ass,” he muttered.

            “Are you besmirching my honor?!”

            Heero glared at me.

            “Here’s your food,” I said, handing him the half-eaten sandwich.

            He gave me a repulsed look.

            “It’s good?”

            “I can see that.  Why don’t you just finish it?”

            “You’re the one who hasn’t eaten in days.”

            “I think I’ll be okay without your regurgitated leftovers.”

            “You have gotten damn sassy since you piloted that gundam.”

            “And you like it.”

            “God help me, I do.”

            Heero smiled at that, the briefest upturn of his lips.

            I couldn’t help but think that this was my Heero from the war, combined with my nerdy doctor post-war boyfriend.  I did like it, and it felt like something that had been missing had snapped back into place.

            “You’re going to send her into the sun,” he finally said.

            “We don’t have any choice.”

            “We could find Trowa.  Find Easton.  Find the other gundam.”

            “Piloting a mobile suit is a Class A felony,” I pointed out.

            “When did you start following all the rules?”

            I gave him a funny look.  This was Heero Yuy, who could write a ten page lab report about nothing, just to make sure that all the details were sufficiently covered.  He lectured me on every infraction.  He quadruple-checked everything.  He was the epitome of precise and orderly.

            …but sometimes he just followed his feelings.

            “I’m not sure if you’re seducing me, or the gundam is,” I murmured.

            “So you’ll help me fix her?”

            “No, no way, this is crazy,” I said, stopping myself from nodding and instead vigorously shaking my head.

            Heero stared at me.

            My god, Heero Yuy was looking down on me for being a goody two-shoes.  What had my life come to?

            “Stop trying to peer pressure me,” I growled.  “This piece of shit machine made you crazy, Heero.  What about your vow?”

            “I didn’t kill anyone,” he said sharply.

            “Well, okay, the casualty report from the colonies was zero, but that had to be dumb luck.  We haven’t gotten the report from Europe yet, and there’s just no way that no one would have been killed from that kind of attack.”

            “Check the numbers,” Heero said, taking the sandwich from me and tearing off a bite.

            I suddenly remembered who I was talking to.  “You didn’t kill a single person in your little mental vacation factory blowout?”

            “No,” he said, taking another savage bite.  “I got… carried away…  But Minerva didn’t want to destroy.  She wanted to heal.”

            “You realize you sound like a lunatic, right?”

            “I don’t want to hear that from someone who used to call himself the god of death.”

            “Where did all this confidence come from?!” I demanded.

            “Zero reminded me,” he said, eyes penetrating mine.

            Somehow we ended up doing the repairs on Minerva with parts salvaged from a failed auto factory.  Apparently Sanc didn’t have much need for domestic cars.

            Relena came to see us, covered in worry.  “The ESUNBI almost has their warrant to come intruding into my country,” she said.

            “Give us two hours,” Heero said.

            “I think I can give you one,” she said, flipping open her pink phone and calling one of her contacts.

            Heero shrugged and went back to work, like that wasn’t an impossible suggestion.

            “There is no way I can make her space-worthy in an hour!” I yelled up to him in the cockpit.

            “Then you’re not very good!” he called back.

            I kicked Minerva in the gut and injured my toe.  After I hopped around yelling about it for a while, I went back to work.

            “The warrant has been issued,” Relena announced almost exactly an hour later.  “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

            “I guess that’s our cue,” I said.  The repair-work was shoddy at best.

            Heero tossed down the zipline to me.  “Thank you,” he said gruffly, nodding at Relena before disappearing back into the cockpit.

            I turned to her, the ludicrousness of the situation weighing on me.  “…are we making a mistake…?”

            Relena didn’t look worried at all.  “Go save the world,” she said, patting me on the shoulder.  “I’ve got to head to the colonies to speak about these alleged government mobile suit factories.”

            I nodded to her, zipping up to the cockpit.  I didn’t want to say anything else that was completely lame.

            When had Relena gotten cooler than me?  Goddammit, even Heero was cooler than me now.  He was possibly out of his mind and about to kill both of us, but he made it look cool.

            I was the one who had no idea what I was doing.

            “Sit,” Heero said, closing the hatch and activating the launch sequence.

            I sat on the bench seat that he had installed next to the pilot’s chair.

            “Seatbelt.”

            I rolled my eyes, clicking it into place.

            “What are the chances we burn up in the atmosphere?” he asked, moving us out of the barn.

            “Mm, I’d say one in five.”

            “That’s better than I expected.”

            “Duo Maxwell always defies the odds.”

            Heero paused in his maneuvering, turning to me as he yanked my face to his and kissed me hard.

            I blinked.

            “We’re both going to pilot,” he said, flipping on the Zero System.


	20. Chapter 20

            I was ready for it this time.

            Duo’s heartbeat thudded in my ears, but it was soothing.  I felt us synching, to Minerva, to each other, to the universe.

            No, I was getting sucked in.

            I took a deep breath.

            I was ready for it this time.

            Duo’s heartbeat was soothing, beating in time with my own.

            I pushed us forward, while Duo navigated the path.

            The ESUNBI’s helicopter was flying overhead.  They were hailing us, trying to stop us.

            “We’ll do a water launch,” I said unnecessarily, because Duo was already guiding us there.

            We hit turbulence passing through the atmosphere, but Duo’s slapdash repairs held up.

            “Are you questioning the integrity of my work?” Duo growled at me.

            “Your work has proved adequate.”                           

            “I would be angrier if that whole thing wasn’t so fucking awesome,” he said, leaning back in his seat.  “Holy shit, look at the earth.  It always looks best from a gundam cockpit, ya know?”

            “It looks exactly the same from any similarly distanced vantage point.”

            “You are so… _you_ ,” he concluded.

            “Who else would I be?”

            “No one,” he said.

            I didn’t have to look at him, because I could feel him smiling through the Zero System, a fond look with sad eyes.

            “You’ve just concluded that I’m still the same, so why do you think that you’re losing me?” I asked.

            His hand covered mine as we pushed the thrusters.

            “I feel very far away from you right now,” he reasoned out slowly.

            “We are for all intents and purposes sharing our minds and bodies through the Zero System.  I don’t see how we could be any closer.”

            “It’s not… you don’t see what I mean…”

            “Even like this we don’t understand one another,” I muttered.

“I’m just saying that you’re different when you’re on a mission.  Where the fuck are we going, anyway?”

            “The way you’re going.”

            “Yes, but _where_ are we going?”

            “To the Brotherhood’s base.”

            “And how do you know where that is?”

            “Homing signal.”

            Duo was getting exasperated.

            “The Brotherhood sends out a signal when they move their base of operations,” I explained.  “Minerva can read that frequency.  Before you ask, Easton changed the signal after Minerva was compromised, but I reconfigured her to find the new signal.”

            “Of course you did.”

            “I don’t know if you’re being passive-aggressive or acknowledging my skill.”

            “A little bit of both,” Duo said, and now he was smiling for real.

            “What?” I said, finally turning to look at him properly for the first time since we launched.

            It was overwhelming.  Minerva was feeding all this information into my head, and I felt like I couldn’t keep up.

            We gravitated into one another, not difficult in the cramped cockpit, and touched lips.

            It was too much.

            We separated hastily, both taking in deep breaths.

            “Man, someone should market the Zero System to brothels or some shit,” Duo said, running a hand through his bangs.

            “You always know how to capture the moment in words,” I muttered.

            “See, now that we’re connected, I know that you’re saying that with fondness.”

            I held his hand, and he held mine, and we followed the Brotherhood’s homing signal to L5.

            “What are we going to do when we get there?” Duo asked.

            “Threaten to blow up their base if they don’t give up Trowa and the other gundam.”

            “Do we need to make good on that threat if they don’t comply?”

            I was still thinking.

            “You don’t have to do this,” Duo said carefully.

            “I _can_ do it,” I asserted.  “I can do it now.  I don’t have to be afraid.  I don’t have to kill.  It’s not an either/or.”

            “It’s not,” he agreed

            “…help me…?”

            “Of course.”

            We approached the colony from behind.

            The second gundam was waiting for us.

            “Today’s not going our way, huh?” Duo said, flashing me a crooked grin.

            I flipped through the com channels.

            “It’s me,” came Trowa’s voice through the speakers.

            “They got you to pilot?” I asked.

            “Took Cathy hostage,” he answered.  “She gave a few of them some black eyes in the process, though.”

            “That’s our girl,” Duo put in.

            “I couldn’t disconnect the pilot self-destruct,” Trowa said.  “So it seems like we’ll have to fight.”

            “Yes, it seems like you have no choice,” Aaron Easton’s voice crackled over our channel.  “Unless you’d like to return Minerva to me?”

            “No choice, then,” Duo said, queuing up some battle music.

            All three of us wanted to fight.

            “So you’re both piloting in there?” Trowa asked.

            Duo flipped on the video screen, waving to him while I dodged an attack from his Epyon-like whip.

            “That looks like a seat from Relena’s fleet of limos,” Trowa murmured, studying Duo’s chair.

            “You have a discerning eye, my friend,” Duo said, firing Minerva’s beam cannon.  “We raided her pink limo factory for parts.”

            “She has a pink limo _factory_?” Trowa marveled.

            “I feel like you are not taking this battle seriously,” Aaron interjected over our coms.

            “Do you see how fucking awesome this fight is?” Duo protested.  “Look at us.  Just _look at us_.”

            We were in fact creating some amazing explosions as we went all out.  The two of us trusted Trowa not to get blown up, just like he trusted us to do the same.

            “Piloting a gundam is like riding a bicycle,” Trowa commented.

            “A shame we have to send them into the sun,” Duo sighed, barely audibly.

            “What are you three plotting?” Aaron growled.  “I have your sister, No-Name.”

            “We’re not plotting anything,” Duo said breezily.

            We let Trowa hit us, hacking off our right arm.

            “Damn you, Trowa!” Duo cursed.  “You were my best friend!”

            I elbowed him.

            ‘I’m selling it,’ he mouthed at me.

            ‘You’re over-selling it,’ I mouthed back.

            “Everyone’s a fucking critic,” he muttered.  “Heeeero, what do we do?”

            “I have incapacitated Minerva,” Trowa announced to Aaron.  “Guess that answers the great looming question, ‘who was the greatest gundam pilot to ever live?’”

            “Your gundam’s better equipped for space fights!” Duo snapped.  “If this had been on earth, we woulda blown you to Timbuktu!”

            “I will remind you all one last time that I have the woman called Catherine Bloom, and you had better start taking this seriously,” Aaron growled.

            “We’re taking it seriously,” Trowa stated flatly.  “I’m bringing in Minerva.”

            “That’s a good boy.”

            Duo made a face at me, and I smiled.

            “Your smile’s nice after a battle,” he said, poking my knee which was jutting into his personal space.  Gundam cockpits weren’t made for two pilots.

            “Thank… you…?”

            “Well, usually when you smile it looks deranged,” he continued.

            “That is very true,” Trowa agreed, finishing hooking our gundam to his.  “I’m going to take off,” he warned us.

            We both jerked against our harnesses, then the ride smoothed out.

            I took Duo’s palm in mine, tapping out Morse code.  ‘Good job with that coding.’

            ‘We sure it worked?’

            ‘Trowa seems confident.  Wouldn’t risk Cathy’s life if it didn’t work.’

            ‘Still not sure how this is going to go down without her getting hurt.’

            I pulled his hand to my chest, holding it there.

            “You scared, Yuy?” he asked with a playful smile.

            “Yes,” I said.

            Duo blinked owlishly at me.  “Heero Yuy with fear, huh?”

            “Fear is good,” I said, still cradling his hand.  “It means that you want to survive.”

            “This whole shared Zero experience with you has been really weird,” he informed me.  “Hey, Tro?” he said, raising his voice towards the microphone.  “Did you ever even use the Zero System during the war?”

            “Mm, once,” he said.  “We’re going to be landing shortly.”

            “Okay, but you don’t seem affected at all,” Duo said suspiciously.  “How come it’s not affecting you negatively?  Heero Yuy, Master of the Fucking Zero System, lost three days when he started piloting, and even I, Duo Maxwell the Greatest Gundam Pilot Known to Man, couldn’t quite figure it out on the first try.”

            “I did not lose three days,” I complained.  “They just… blended together.”

            “You are so adorable when you want to try to reason your way out of something with faulty logic,” he said, pinching my cheek.

            “My logic is never faulty,” I growled, pushing his hand away.

            “Ha!”

            “Did you want me to answer the question, or did you want to continue with your awkward flirting?” Trowa interrupted.

            “Awkward?!” Duo cried.  “I will have you know that I am a very smooth operator.”

            “Smooth as a lion’s tongue,” Trowa said quietly.

            “Jokes only work if people understand them!” Duo exclaimed.  “Who the hell knows if a lion’s tongue is smooth or rough?”

            “Enough!” Aaron’s voice boomed over the coms.  “Prepare to dock Minerva.”

            “Of course,” Trowa said, entering the colony’s airlock.  “And the reason I can use the Zero System better than either of you two, or anyone else in the world for that matter, is because I am not fettered down by unrealistic expectations of the future and complicated philosophies about war and peace.”

            “That sounds like some bullshit,” Duo muttered.

            “And also, because I know that a lion’s tongue is rough, and anyone who doesn’t is unqualified to pilot.”

            Duo tossed his head back and laughed.

            I could feel their connection, stretching easily between them despite the distance.

            “Are you jealouuuus?” Duo asked, flicking my arm.

            “Yes.”

            He grinned as we were docked at the Brotherhood’s base.

            The three of us were all at ease, and it was pissing off Aaron Easton.

            “I have the girl if you try anything funny!” he warned us yet again.

            “Cathy’s not really a girl, I mean, she’s a woman, isn’t she?” Duo said, scratching his nose.

            “A very formidable woman,” I agreed.  I’d always respected her.

            “Just get out of the damn gundam!” he snapped.

            “He’s really started to lose his cool, huh?” Duo said to me as he undid his seatbelt harness.

            “I think he might be angry about me stealing his gundam,” I suggested.

            “You brought it back,” he said with a shrug.

            I opened the hatch, and we immediately had about twenty assault rifles trained on us.

            “Gun runners get the best illegal guns,” Duo complained, showing his hands.

            We were allowed to come out of the cockpit and were promptly escorted in front of Aaron.

            “I appreciate you taking out those mobile suit factories, Yuy, but we already had a plan in motion, and it’s been slightly derailed,” Aaron said with a sigh as he looked down at us.

            I stared at him.

            Trowa waved to us as he was escorted away by armed guards.

            Duo waved back cheerfully.

            I continued my staring match with Aaron.

            “You both may have outlived your usefulness,” he said.

            I tilted my head to the side.  Threatening.

            I could feel Duo’s smile without having to see it.

            “Take them to the cells,” Aaron said, turning away abruptly, trying to act like he’d had the last word.

            “Damn, Yuy,” Duo said, only to get a gun to the back.  He stumbled a little from the hit, but remained cheerful.

            We joined Cathy and Trowa in holding after we were thoroughly frisked.

            “Shit, that guard got further with you than I have,” Duo complained as he waltzed through the cell door.

            I stared at him.

            “I’m going to assume that you two got caught on purpose and have some kind of plan,” Cathy said, eyeing us warily.

            “When do I ever have a plan?” Duo laughed.  He slid his lock-picking tool from his braid.

            “We’ll get you out of here, and we will destroy all the mobile suits in the Earth Sphere,” I said.

            The corners of Cathy’s eyes crinkled.  “Hey, Heero Yuy, long time no see.”


	21. Chapter 21

            “So you’re really sleeping with Yuy?” Trowa asked as we watched Heero and Cathy talking across the room.

            “I wish,” I said.

            “Oh, you’re _taking it slow_.”

            “Like turtles.  Do turtles even fuck?  How the hell do turtles fuck?”

            “They don’t, Duo.  The female lays eggs and the male fertilizes them.”

            “You’re lying!”

            “Yeah.”                

            “Oh, shit.  Good,” I said, breathing out a sigh of relief.  “Wait.  You admitted to that too easily.”

            “Did I?”

            “Dammit, Barton.”

            He nudged my knee with his.

            “I missed you,” I finally confessed.  “Way to get yourself kidnapped, though.  Lame.”

            “You did it first.”

            “Exactly.  Copying me.  How unoriginal.”

            “At least I didn’t get my partner shot.”

            “Hey, the night is young.”

            “Did you just imply that I was going to get my sister shot?  That’s a shitty thing to say, L2 trash.”

            “I don’t wanna hear it from an L3 bitch.”

            “Um, I think your boyfriend is trying to kill me with his eyes.  Damn.  Haven’t seen that look in a while.”

            “Yeah, uh.  Yeah,” I said, trying not to be turned on by Heero looking murderous.  I was starting to understand what our relationship had been lacking up until now.  “Hey, you won’t believe what he said to me.  He thinks that you’re madly in love with me.”

            “I can see that.”

            I turned to Trowa, eyes searching.

            His expression was the same as always, an easy-going mask that never gave anything away.  It certainly didn’t give away that he was about to pinch my butt as I got up to pick the lock.

            I turned to him, scandalized.

            “You have a subpar ass,” Trowa informed me.

            “There’s nothing subpar about it!” I said, wiggling my hips as I walked over to the door.

            Heero’s expression transformed into his usual ‘Maxwell is an idiot’ look, while Cathy looked intrigued.

            “I wonder how in synch we were without actually discussing the plan out loud,” I mused, easily undoing the lock.  “Damn, that wasn’t even a challenge.  Anyway, our explosion should be just about… now…”

            There was a nice satisfying boom that rocked the entire building as Minerva was blown to smithereens.

            “Pretty in synch,” Trowa said, followed by a second boom.

            “So you boys haven’t discussed this so-called plan?” Cathy asked.

            “I mean, me and Heero had that like deeper-level, Quatre-space-heart Zero System connection going on,” I said.  “But we didn’t actually verbalize anything, no.”

            “Got any knives for me to throw?”

            “We can work on that,” I said, pressing myself flat to the wall next to the door.

            Heero took up next to me, while Trowa and Cathy stayed in front of the door, looking prisoner-y.

            The commotion with the guards outside was coming to an end.

            I winked at Heero and threw the door open.  “Fucking amateurs,” I said, catching one of the idiots’ trigger fingers and making him fire at the other guard.

            “No killing,” Heero said, sliding between my legs and taking the guard out at the knees.

            “How did you even do that?” I grumbled, knocking my guard unconscious and stealing his gun.

            He just looked at me.

            I swooned a little.

            We locked the guards in the cell.

            Heero offered his gun to Cathy, but she shook her head.

            “Knives.”

            “Does this base have a kitchen?” Heero asked Trowa, handing him the gun.

            “Judging by the slop they serve, I’d say no.”

            “Sorry, Cath, you might have to sit this one out,” I said, taking point.

            We had a couple of skirmishes with errant terrorists that weren’t so hard to take care of, but then Aaron Easton came at us in a motherfucking tank.

            “You blew up my gundams!” he screamed through the speaker.

            “He has gotten seriously unhinged,” I said, shaking my head.  “Makes ya sloppy.”

            “He is protected by the impenetrable armor of a tank, so I don’t know that that’s going to play in our favor,” Trowa mused.

            “Where did Cathy go?” I asked, suddenly noting her absence.

            Trowa let out a long-suffering sigh.  “She can take care of herself.”

            “Well, yeah, but you know, terrorists, guns… motherfucking tanks.”

            “What _are_ we going to do about that?”

            “I suggest running,” Heero said, already moving.

            “When does Heero Yuy run?!” I cried, following him.

            “Motherfucking tank, Duo.”

            I shouldn’t have been laughing at such an inopportune time, but my boy occasionally had a sense of humor.

            We left the smoky hangar for the safety of the base, only to have Aaron drive through the wall and follow us.

            “Boys versus tank, who will win?” I asked, enjoying the sprint.

            “We need a bomb,” Trowa mused.

            “How are we just gonna make a bomb?” I said.  “Do you think bombs just get made out of thin air?”

            “You’re the king of homemade bombs, so yes, that is what I think.”

            We turned a corner and ran into an armed contingent.

            “Tank!” I yelled at them, but they didn’t seem impressed.  They were definitely not going to survive this.

            “Knives!” Cathy responded cheerfully, taking out two of the five men from behind.

            That left one each for the three of us, which was nothing, except Heero didn’t want to leave them to get run over by the tank, so we lost valuable time dragging their unconscious bodies to safety.

            “You having a soul now is very inconvenient,” I informed him.

            He glared at me.

            “I miss when you were afraid of me,” I said with sigh.  “And your glasses!  How can you even see without your adorable, dorkified glasses?”

            “I’m farsighted.”

            “Hope you don’t need to… see anything close up!” I concluded, unable to come up with anything clever while running from a tank.  My lungs were getting tired, and sure the walls of the base were slowing the thing down, but it just kept coming.

            I hadn’t felt this good in a long time.

            Maybe that said something about me, because there was at least a seventy-six percent probability that we were going to die.

            Of course, when you had Heero Yuy on your side, probability didn’t really matter.

            “Did he just…?” was all I could say, staring as Heero ran at the tank and jumped up to the hatch.

            Easton maneuvered the tank’s gun towards us in threat, so Heero reached over, muscles straining as he bent the metal, rendering the gun useless.

            Trowa and I gaped.  Well, I gaped, and Trowa’s eyes went all buggy.

            “What the hell did those scientists put in his Wheaties?” I muttered.

            “I forgot how unrealistically strong he is,” Trowa muttered back.

            “I mean, it must be a defective tank.”

            “Obviously.”

            “We should probably move out of its way anyway though,” I said.  “Just in case.”

            We both leapt out of the way of the lumbering tank, missing the exact moment when Heero wrenched the hatch open and pulled Aaron out.

            Hilde stared at me over her computer.  “That did not happen,” she stated flatly.

            “What part of our very factual account are you questioning?!” I demanded.

            “Everything starting from the part where Heero took on a tank and won.”

            “Hil, you do not even know half the freaky shit J did to Heero.”

            Trowa nodded his support.

            Hilde looked between us skeptically.  “He was still recovering from his gunshot wounds.”

            “Look at the pictures!” I said, waving the file in front of her face and pointing at the pictures of the bent-up tank gun.

            “It crashed into something,” Hilde said.  “Or Heero used something stronger to bend it like that.”

            “Stronger than a motherfucking tank?!” I cried.

            “The only thing stronger than a tank is Heero Yuy,” Trowa said solemnly.

            “I cannot believe you two,” Hilde muttered.  “Une will never accept this report, and _I’m_ gonna have to rewrite it.”

            “We can’t do anything but report the truth,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

            Hilde rolled her eyes.  “So what happened after Heero single-handedly defeated the tank and brought Aaron Easton to justice?”

            “The motherfucker shot him,” Trowa said, doing a perfect impression of me that I resented.

            “I really thought that Heero had reached god status…” I sighed.  “Of course, he punched Aaron in the face even with a gunshot wound to the arm, so yeah, he must be at least a demigod.”

            “Duo was too dumbstruck to move, so I disarmed Aaron and made Heero sit down and put some pressure on his bleeding arm,” Trowa explained.

            “I was not-” I started irritably, then just let it slide.  Trowa had been pretty cool, jumping up on the tank with a circus flip and spin kicking the gun out of Aaron’s hand.  “I stole the space shuttle.”

            “Um, maybe you should keep that out of the report,” Hilde suggested.

            “What?!  Is stealing from terrorists a crime now?!”

            “I think people might start to wonder about how good you are at hotwiring space-worthy vehicles.”

            “It was a very necessary part of our escape.”

            “I can’t believe this report,” Hilde said, tossing it over our computers and back onto my desk.

            “I can’t help what you believe or don’t believe.”

            “And all this homoerotic gundam co-piloting!” she cried, throwing her hands in the air.

            “I was there, and I can assure you that the homoeroticism was real,” Trowa said.

            “Yeah?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows.  “You think me and Heero are homoerotic?”

            “All your ‘sharing a mind’ and what-have-you Zero System nonsense,” Hilde muttered.

            “Gay,” Trowa said, shaking his head.

            “Speaking of lover boy,” Hilde said, and suddenly everyone in the office was standing up and saluting.

            Heero, standing in the doorway, turned around abruptly and left.

            “Was that overkill?” Sally asked, looking amused.

            “I’ll go see what he needed,” I said, trying not to grin stupidly as I slipped out after him.  “Hold the elevator!”

            Heero hesitated, and the doors started to shut.

            I dashed forward, and they slammed on my hand.  “Ow…” I muttered, pushing the doors open.  “Hey.”

            “Hello…” he said, not meeting my eyes

            “You didn’t tell me you were coming back to work today,” I said, invading his personal space.

            “I’m coming back to work today.”

            “How’s your arm?” I asked, tracing my hand lightly over his bicep and feeling the thick bandage.  I settled my hand on his shoulder, pulling him towards me.

            The folder he was holding dropped to the floor.  “Oh.  Uh.  Fine.”

            I let go and picked up his folder.  It was his mission report.  “You want me to take this to Sally?”

            “Yes,” he said, seeming to relax a little.  As an afterthought, he added, “Thank you.”

            I leaned against the opposite wall, trying not to be so predatory.  “You wanna come over tonight?”

            He nodded.

            I felt my face melt into a smile.  “Okay.  Come over after you feed the rats.”

            “They’re hamsters.”

            “Yeah, yeah, Gray and Brown, hamsters not rats.”

            Heero stared at me.

            “What?” I asked, scratching my nose.

            He shook his head.  “I’ll see you tonight.”

            The door opened and he exited the elevator abruptly.

            “Wear something sexy,” I suggested before the doors closed.

            He ignored me, of course, and showed up to my apartment in his mom jeans and a Gundam 00 t-shirt.

            “Why do you dress like a teenage shut-in?” I asked, standing in the doorway and staring out at him.

            “Shut up,” he replied, elbowing his way inside.

            “Oh, good, you’re still feisty,” I said.  I closed and locked the door before following him to the living room.  “The way you were running away scared from the agents, I thought you’d lost your edge.”

            “I didn’t run away,” he said, giving me a sour look.  “And I certainly wasn’t _scared_.”

            “Then…?”

            Heero was sulking.

            “Why are you so…?” I muttered, my mind filling in the word ‘adorable’.  “…moody?”

            “Sally and Wufei asked me to be an agent.”

            “Whaaaaaat?”

            “Of course I said no.”

            “Why of course?  Why wouldn’t you…” I trailed off, because I already knew.

            “I like being a scientist,” he said quietly.  “It’s the life I chose for myself.  I don’t want to go… back.  That’s not who I am.”

            “It _is_ kind of who you are though.”

            He frowned at me.

            “Heero, you defeated a motherfucking tank.  Come on.”

            “That wasn’t… bad.  But I don’t want to be an agent.”

            “Did you see Aaron’s face when you dragged him outta the tank?”

            “Right before he shot me?”

            “Damn, I think he’s shot you more than I have now.”

            Heero had the smallest smile.  He sat on the couch, and I padded over to sit next to him.  “Hi,” he said.

            “Hi,” I answered, feeling myself starting to stupidly glow.  We hadn’t seen much of each other since we’d gotten back, what with the investigation, brief imprisonment, psych evaluations, and what have you.  “You don’t like being the center of attention, hm?”

            “Obviously.”

            “Well, I’ve got a plan to distract everyone from your heroics,” I offered.

            “It’ll have to be something pretty spectacular,” he said.  “I defeated a tank bare-handed.”

            I grinned.  “That was super hot, too.  But yeah, I’ve got just the thing.”

            He waited patiently for me to spit it out.

            “I think I’m gonna quit the Preventers!” I declared cheerfully.


	22. Chapter 22

            Duo lay his head on my lap, staring up at the ceiling as he spoke.

            I touched his hair hesitantly.

            He gave me a reassuring smile.

            I ran my fingers through it the way I wanted to, and started massaging his scalp gently.

            “I’ve just become a total asshole,” he said tiredly.

            “A little bit,” I agreed.

            He head-butted my stomach.

            I stared at him.

            “It’s because I’m not happy,” he finally said.

            I nodded.  I was beginning to understand that.  I stroked his hair carefully, watching how he stretched and arched when it felt good, nestling his cheek against my thigh.

            “How’s your hand?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

            “Fine,” I said, thumbing his ear with my shot hand.  “The doctor said it’s healing up well.”

            “It still hurts though, doesn’t it?”

            “I don’t mind it.”

            “Oh my god, I’ve just realized that you’re a masochist.  It explains so much.”

            I flicked his ear.

            Duo scrunched up his nose.

            “I’m not a masochist,” I said.  “Probably.”

            Duo grinned.  “You wanna find out?”

            “Maybe,” I said, not looking at him.

            He patted my knee and didn’t push it.

            “You’ve been very… controlled since we came back,” I observed.

            “I told you, I realized what an asshole I’ve been.”

            “That’s never stopped you before.”

            “I like the sass, but it cuts, Heero, it cuts.”

            “Sit up.”

            He stared up at me.

            “Sit up,” I repeated.

            He did so, shifting so he could face me.  “I kinda like when you order me around.”

            “Are you really going to leave the Preventers?” I asked, trying to redirect him back to the topic at hand.

            “I don’t know,” he said.

            “Where would you go?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “I want to…” I started, trailing off uncertainly.

            “I hope you’re going to say you want to come with me.”

            I could feel my cheeks going involuntarily red.

            Duo didn’t laugh.  He caught my face in his hands, breathing out, “Fuck, Heero, I wanna buy curtains with you.”

            I stared at him.

            “It was this whole thing… about settling down… and you know…” he trailed off.  “Trowa would get it!”

            I frowned.

            “I don’t know how I feel about this whole jealousy streak of yours,” he said, smushing my cheeks.

            “What are you doing?” I asked, which came out garbled due to Duo’s distorting of my face.

            “I’m having a very important conversation with you,” he said, continuing to make it impossible for me to speak clearly.  “Look, whatever we both do from now… let’s do it together.  And have sex.  I mean really, can we screw already?”

            I removed his hands from my cheeks.  “How can I say no to such a romantic proposal?”

            “I’m gonna take your sarcasm as a yes.”

            “It wasn’t a no.”

            “Hot damn!” Duo said, jumping up from the couch and tossing his shirt over his shoulder.

            “I didn’t mean right this second…” I muttered, eyes lingering on Duo Maxwell’s very solid six-pack.

            “Too bad, this is happening!” Duo said, throwing his pants off.

            “You are very adept at clothing removal…” I observed, looking at the tiny black boxers he was wearing.

            “Dr. Yuy, is that lust in your eyes or are you just happy to see me?”

            “…what…?”

            Duo laughed, and my eyes finally dragged up his body to meet his eyes.  “We don’t have to do anything,” he said, pulling me to my feet.  “Or, you know, we could.”

            I pulled him down closer by the back of his neck, pressing our lips together.

            There was a faint tremor running through Duo’s body, and I knew he was struggling to hold himself back.

            I appreciated it.

            I also wanted to make him come undone.

            “I don’t want to hurt you,” I finally mumbled into his neck.

            “Okay, then don’t,” he said, seeming completely unconcerned.

            “I’m not… good at this.”

            “You’re a fast learner.”

            “I’m nervous.”

            “Ah, there it is,” he said, kissing the top of my head.

            I suddenly felt small in his arms.

            “Let’s just do whatever we’re both comfortable with, yeah?”

            “…yeah…”

            “So would you be comfortable with me undressing you?”

            “…no.”

            Duo sighed.  “Okay,” he said, rocking me side-to-side for a moment.  The motion was soothing.  “I feel like I may have been a little overzealous with the whole getting naked thing.”

            “No,” I said, letting my hand glide over his shoulder blades.  “I like it.”

            Duo’s body stiffened, and I realized that he was surprised.  “See, you go from little shy boy to sexual predator in like the span of a minute, and it’s very confusing.”

            “It’s confusing for me, too,” I offered, pushing him on the couch.

            He grinned.

            “I’m always holding back,” I said quietly.

            Duo held his hand out to me.

            I took it, and he led me to his lap.

            “I never hold back,” he said, peppering my face with kisses.

            “You’ve been holding back a lot…”

            “What, by not boning you the second we started dating?” he hummed into my neck.  “Yeah, that’s true.  I’m pretty impressive.”

            I caught his face in my hands, tilting it up to face me.  “I want to make it up to you.”

            Duo’s smile was soft as our mouths met slowly, lingeringly, longingly.

            I tried to let go.

            “You’re tense,” Duo murmured against my ear.  His warm breath made me shiver, and my reaction made him inhale sharply.  “Okay, I’m just going to lay this out and you say yes or no.”

            I waited.

            “I’m going to unzip your pants and blow you.  That is the plan.  Yes or no?”

            I stared at him.

            His lower lip came out in a pout.  “Jesus, Yuy, it’s a yes or no question.  Relieve me of my suffering and give me an answer either way.”

            “…yes…?” I said.

            “How do you complicate a yes or no question?!”

            “Yes,” I said, trying to sound more sure.

            Duo pressed his forehead to mine.  “Do you feel like I’m pressuring you?  Because I really want to suck your dick.  Like, really, really want to suck your dick.  But if-”

            I was standing up and unzipping my pants.  I did feel complicated about it, but sometimes you just needed to follow your feelings.

            The way Duo stared at my penis made me immediately regret following my feelings.

            “Why the hell are you amused?!” I snapped, struggling to zip myself back up.

            “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just so _cute_!” he said, trying to get me to stop.

            I wanted to dig a hole and bury myself in it.  My eyes darted around the room for a shovel.

            “Come on, Heero, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Duo complained, reaching for me.

            I inched backwards, still looking for an escape.

            “I was expecting something… different, I dunno, but I like it!” he declared.

            I stared at him, mortified.

            “Well, I guess what they say about Asian guys is tr-”

            “Just stop talking!” I cried, throwing my hands over my face, the only way I could hide.

            Duo went quiet.

            I peeked out at him between my fingers.

            “Open mouth, insert foot?” he offered.  He looked like he wanted to devour me.

            “I feel inadequate,” I said flatly, still peering at him from behind my hands.

            “Heero, you could never be inadequate,” he said, shaking his head.  “You are the opposite of inadequate.  You are… potent.”

            “Potent?”

            “I couldn’t think of another word.  I’m not a dictionary.”

            “One might go for the obvious, ‘adequate’.”

            Duo smiled.  “Heero.  Stop.  Come here.”  He definitely wanted to devour me.

            “I’m embarrassed.”

            “I can see that,” he said, taking a cautious stop towards me.  “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, though.  You wanna see mine?”

            “How will that help the situation?!”

            “I dunno, the whole ‘you show me yours, I’ll show you mine’ deal.”

            I did want to see it.  There was this bulge at the front of his boxers, and my eyes were suddenly glued to it.  I covered my eyes again.

            Duo laughed, but it was warm, not mocking.  “Heero, shit.  Stop.  Please.  You are so cute, and it’s weird.”

            “Why is it weird?” I asked, still not looking.

            “Because a man who bends metal with his bare hands shouldn’t be this freaking adorable.”

            “That’s not a compliment.”

            “No, it definitely is.  I could not be complimenting you any harder.”

            “If the recipient doesn’t take it as one, then it isn’t.”

            “Well, what part do you object to?”

            “I don’t want to be cute to you.  I’m not a small animal.”

            “You’re not just cute, if that makes you feel differently.”

            “What else am I?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.  I’d never had these kinds of issues with Professor Leonard.  Marie.  Being with her had been easy.  It was an arrangement.  We talked about forensics.  We had sex.  Then it was over.  But this thing with Duo…  It wasn’t an equation that I could understand.  It terrified me, it thrilled me.

            Duo took my hands and carefully pulled them from my face.  “You’re smart.  And nerdy.  And absolutely sexy.  So very, very sexy.  And a creep.”

            I stared at him.

            He grinned.

            I bit my lip.

            His eyes darkened.

            I stopped, trying to look less vulnerable.  I was letting myself feel inferior for no good reason.

            “If you want to stop, please say so now, because I’m about to lose it,” he said, letting go of my hands and letting them fall to my sides.

            As much as I tried to push him away, Duo kept snapping back to me like a rubber band.  I did trust him.  He could be a complete asshole, but I trusted him, and I knew that he cared about me.  It was in the way he looked at me, in the tone of voice he used around me.  It was my own expressions reflected back at me.  This wasn’t a game to him, not anymore anyway.

            I didn’t have to hide anything from him.  I could be me, whatever that meant, whoever that was.

            I wanted to find out.


	23. Chapter 23

            I knew that I was messing everything up, but there was a lot less blood flowing to my brain, and I had decided that Heero was absolutely the cutest, most adorable person in the ESUN.

            A really cute, adorable person who was suddenly giving me smoldering eyes.

            One had not lived until they had been smoldered at by Heero Yuy.  My breath caught in my throat.

            “Can I?” he asked.                                                           

            I blinked stupidly at him.  “Huh?”

            His hand that had somehow appeared on my hip slid to my thigh.

            There was _pressure_ , and I felt all my senses fleeing me.  I had no idea what he wanted, but I knew the answer was, “Yes, please.”

            He bit his lip again, eyes cutting up to me before sliding his hand between my legs.

            “Oh,” I said, resting both of my hands on his shoulders to anchor myself.

            He unbuttoned the snaps on the front of my boxers, then slowly curled his fingers around me.

            I made an undignified noise and buried my face in the crook of his neck.

            “Is this okay?” he asked, hesitating.

            “Very okay, very okay!” I assured him.  “The most okay thing that has ever happened.  In the world.  Ever.”

            He let out a puff of air, his version of a laugh, and pulled me out of my boxers and into the light of day.

            I glanced up at him, studying his frown.  “Something… the matter?”

            “It’s… big,” he complained.

            My face broke into a grin.  I wanted to laugh, but Heero was holding my dick, and that just wasn’t a laughing matter.

            Then he let go.

            I might have whined a little.

            “I wanted to see it, and now I’ve seen it,” he said solemnly.

            “Oh my god, you are the worst cock tease I have ever met.”

            “You’ve been using a lot of superlatives.”

            “Well, that should tell you about the enormity of us getting it on.”

            “I’m glad,” he said quietly, taking my palm and bringing it to his lips.  “That it’s as important to you as it is to me.”

            “Stop being suave,” I muttered, reclaiming my hand.  I felt like the balance of power had shifted between us, and it wasn’t a bad feeling, it just made me feel like rabid butterflies were trying to eat their way out of my stomach.

            “I don’t think that’s a word that’s ever been used to describe me…” Heero said, kissing me.  He was up on his toes again, and it was so damn adorable.

            I wanted to say something, but he was pressing really close.  I could feel the rough cotton of his t-shirt touching my still very-exposed penis.  I could also feel a returning bulge pressed against my thigh.  Everything was coming up Duo today, that was for sure.  I locked my arm around him and kissed him as thoroughly as possible.

            “Come down here,” he growled at me, pulling my face down so he could stand flat on his feet again while we kissed.

            I was going to die of euphoria.

            “That is not an attractive expression,” Heero said.

            I sputtered.

            He smiled, one of those smiles that reached his eyes but was still kind of unpleasant to look at.

            I liked it, though.  I liked it so much, I slid to my knees.

            He looked nervous again, catching the back of my head.  “Are you going to…?”

            “Yes, please.”

            “Don’t laugh at me again,” he mumbled, looking to the side.

            “I didn’t _laugh_ ,” I protested.

            He didn’t look convinced.

            I nuzzled my cheek against his thigh.

            Heero took a breath.

            I nuzzled a little closer.  I hadn’t been this close to a dick that wasn’t my own in long, long time.  I pressed my nose into it, and I felt Heero’s whole body straighten.

            His fingers tightened in my hair, and then his free hand went to his zipper and he just let it out.

            As much as I liked shy, cute Heero, confident, straightforward Heero wasn’t bad either.

            This time I didn’t smile, just looked reverently at the lovely offering before me.  I decided it was a very nice size, easily wrapping my hand around it and fitting it all in my mouth.

            Heero’s fingers clawed into my skull, and I thought that was pretty nice, until his super human strength took over.

            I smooched the tip, looking up at him.  “Good?”

            He gave me a helpless look and nodded.

            “Good.  Just be gentle with my scalp, yeah?”

            Before he could feel too guilty, I went down on him again.

            Heero loosened his fingers, keeping them buried in my hair but now stroking gently.

            It felt nice and I purred around him.

            “Duo,” he said urgently.

            “Hm?”

            “I’m going to come,” he said.

            I pulled back.  “Already?”

            He gave me a pained look.

            “You are the cutest thing alive,” I informed him, settling in to finish the job.

            Heero Yuy had been very pent up, judging by everything that went down my throat.

            I grinned at him.

            He chewed on his lower lip, looking embarrassed.

            “C’mere,” I said, pulling him down to the floor with me.  “That was really nice,” I added, giving him a kiss.

            His nose wrinkled at the taste on my tongue.

            “It’s yummy,” I informed him, licking the roof of his mouth.

            He shook his head, turning his face from my invasion.  “It’s… salty.”

            “It’s good for you,” I said, chasing his mouth.

            “That does not seem scientifically sound,” he said, but let himself be caught.

            I ran my tongue along his until he finally stopped making faces and started taking over the kiss.  I slipped my legs over his, pulling him closer and rubbing my still very active erection against him.

            Heero slid a hand to my leg, his skin burning a trail up my thigh.

            I thought things were moving along very smoothly, when he suddenly got hesitant.

            “What do you want to do?” I asked, thumbing the back of his hand.

            “I don’t know,” he said, thinking as he spoke.  “I want to make you feel how you made me feel.”

            “I’m very agreeable to that idea,” I said, guiding his hand upwards.  My breath caught in my throat.

            “Like this?” he asked.

            I nodded senselessly.

            “Okay,” he said, and then he was confident again.

            A confident Heero was a very skillful Heero.

            “Shit,” was the most comprehensible thing I could come up with to say.

            His eyes were drowning me in their intensity.  He was watching every micro-expression on my face, studying and analyzing every breath I took to make sure he knew how to make me feel good.

            “You’ve really never jerked a guy off before?” I panted into his shoulder, feeling the sticky mess between us and pressing closer anyway.

            Heero didn’t answer, just wrapped his arms around me.

            “I’m… fond of you,” I said, kissing his cheek.

            He looked at me.

            “Are you fond of me?” I asked, grinning.

            “More than fond,” he said, kissing me slowly.

            I melted into him like a pile of goo.  Goddamn, Heero was a smooth creep, and I wanted to buy so many curtains with him.

            “I can’t wear this shirt,” he said suddenly.

            “Then don’t,” I said agreeably, pulling it up to his armpits.

            “I mean that it’s all stained with your… _seminal fluid_.”

            I almost choked on my laughter, while Heero tried to bat me away from stripping him.  “I’ll get you something to change into,” I finally got out, still laughing.

            “Why is this funny to you?”

            I pulled his shirt over his head.  “You just seemed so offended by my… _seminal-_ ”  I started laughing again.

            “Your clothes are big,” he complained, frowning.

            “You make my heart want to explode,” I said, trying to contain my cooing.

            “Do you need an aspirin?” he asked, looking serious.

            “I can’t take you anymore!” I declared, pushing him away by the face.

            “…did I do something wrong?”

            “Shit, stop already, or I’m gonna say something really embarrassing,” I said, getting to my feet.

            Heero looked vaguely perplexed.

            “You are really hot,” I said, looking at his washboard abs.

            Heero looked even more perplexed.

            I liked being the puzzle that he couldn’t figure out.  “I’m taking a shower.  Feel free to join me.”

            I was very pleased when he did.

            “You really want to go back to being a bounty hunter?” he asked as he shampooed his hair.

            “Yeah,” I said.  “Maybe.  I dunno.  Sounds better than what I’m doing now.”

            “You were an adequate bounty hunter.”

            “Adequate?!” I sputtered, accidentally dripping shampoo in my eye.  “Shit!”

            Heero waited until I’d sorted out my stinging eye.  “I thought that was a fair assessment.  I was praising your abilities.”

            I kissed him because he was cute when he was being an asshole.

            He looked surprised and suddenly embarrassed, like he’d just realized that we were naked in a shower together.

            “If I don’t go down the bounty hunter path, I was thinking tattoo artist,” I said.  “Or a veterinarian.  Or a construction worker.”

            Heero looked at me like I was crazy.

            I grinned, stepping under the water to rinse out the shampoo.  “What would you wanna be if you could be anything?”

            “A forensics expert.”

            “I mean _besides_ your current occupation.”

            “Why would I want to do anything besides the occupation that I already chose?”

            I shook my head at him.

            “I like my job,” he said, eyebrows knitting together.

            “But you’re not completely happy,” I pointed out.

            “I…” he started, hesitating.

            “You spend too much time trying to bury the parts of yourself that you don’t like,” I said, pushing some conditioner through his hair.

            “What do you mean?” he asked, but I could see in his eyes that he understood me.

            I worked the conditioner into his scalp, deep and massaging.

            His lips parted slightly.

            “You don’t like being strong,” I said.  “You don’t like being aggressive.  That kind of thing.  But it’s all a part of you.”

            Now he didn’t look happy.

            I decided to pick up the bar of soap and run it over his chest like I’d been fantasizing about for the last five minutes.

            Heero watched me.

            “It’s not like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” I said, letting the soap run down lower.  “No secrets from the Zero System.”

            He caught my wrist, stopping me from continuing.

            I handed him the soap, then bumped him with my hip so I could step under the water.  Washing conditioner out my hair was always a bitch.

            “Why is everything so easy for you?”

            I turned to look at him.  “Huh?”

            He was holding the soap and frowning.

            “You know it’s not easy being Duo Maxwell,” I said, poking him in the side.  He wasn’t the least bit ticklish, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

            “Yes, it is,” he said.  “You just do whatever you want, whenever you want.  You don’t think about the consequence.  You don’t care about them.”

            “And all you do is worry about every little thing to the point that you can’t even move forward with your life,” I countered easily.

            Heero pushed the curtain aside and stepped out of the shower.  He was dripping wet and holding a bar of soap.

            “You need to rinse out the conditioner,” I pointed out.

            “Shut up,” he snarled at me.

            I blinked.  Then I grinned.  “You gonna make me?”

            “Stop joking around,” he said, his voice taking on a hurt tone.

            “Heero, come back in the shower,” I said.  “I’m sorry, okay?  You know how I am.  I have an inability to talk about things seriously due to my traumatic upbringing and all that.”

            He didn’t move.

            “Please?” I said, putting some sincerity into my voice.

            “You’re wasting water.”

            “For fuck’s sake.”

            “I’m serious.”

            “I know, god.  Get your ass in here, already.”

            He stepped back over the rim of the tub, closing the curtain with more force than necessary.

            “Thank you,” I said, taking the soap from him.  “Wash out the damn conditioner.”

            He did so efficiently.

            “And stop having that sour puss on your face,” I added, soaping up his arm.

            “I have no such expression.”

            “Oh, you do,” I said.  “You absolutely do.”

            The look intensified.

            I kissed his shoulder before washing it.

            The expression shifted.  “I’m not good at this,” he finally said when I spun him around to wash his back.

            “Good at taking showers?”

            “Maxwell.”

            I kissed the back of his neck.  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  We’re trying to be serious.  Old dog, new tricks, and all that.”

            “I know,” he said, his shoulders slumping.  “You’re just being you, and I’m just being me.  I can’t…  I’m not good at this.  I’m not good at things that I wasn’t trained to do.”

            “You don’t like feeling out of your element, I get that,” I hummed into his neck.  “You’re a bit of a control freak, I’d say, and all of this is completely out of your control.”

            “I am not a control freak.”

            “You’re the kind of control freak who blows up your gundam when a mission doesn’t go the way you want it to.”

            “That is not an example that illustrates your point.”

            “Your need to always be right is, though.”

            “I _am_ always right.”

            I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out of me.

            “It’s hard for me to think that you’re not laughing at me,” he said quietly.

            “I am laughing at you,” I said, hugging him.  Then I realized that we were both wet and naked.  It seemed like poor planning, but I tried to focus on our conversation instead of how my dick was millimeters from Heero’s very nice butt.  “It’s not a bad thing.  You’re funny.  Sometimes unintentionally, but come on, Heero, you have a hidden sense of humor.  I like that about you.”

            He was quiet, mulling it over.  “I’m not doubting you,” he said finally.  “I know you feel about me how I feel about you.  But I don’t know how to prove that to myself beyond a shadow of a doubt.  There are no facts that I can check or hard data that I can research.  I can’t explain this with logic.”

            “That’s what love is, dummy.”

            “…you called it ‘love’.”

            “Slip of the tongue,” I muttered, embarrassed.

            Heero leaned back against me.

            Of course I got hard.  “How’s this for a fact?”

            “That’s the nerves in your brain sending a chemical message to the blood vessels in your penis.”

            “And that message is?”

            “Reproduce for the preservation of the species.”

            “How’s that gonna work if my partner is a guy?”

            “Something must be faulty with your brain, then.”

            I laughed into his neck.

            Heero’s hips rolled back into mine.

            I gasped.

            “We’re wasting water,” he said, but there was something very sexy about his tone.

            “It all gets recycled in the colony filtration system,” I reasoned.

            “You have a point.”

            We wasted a little more water.


	24. Chapter 24

            Mariemaia could not control her mirth as she passed the mashed potatoes.

            I glowered at her.

            Duo just accepted the potatoes and cheerfully scooped them onto his plate, seemingly oblivious to Une’s scrutiny from across the table.

            She took the offered potatoes imperiously.

            Duo took a bite, eyes going thoughtful.  “Babe, needs more salt.”

            I turned red, eyes flicking around the room for a safe place to hide.

            “Here’s some salt,” Mariemaia said helpfully.

            Duo shook out some, then offered it to Une.

            “I think it tastes fine,” she said evenly.

            He shrugged.  “Heero’s food always tastes bland to me.”

            “So you eat his cooking a lot?” Mariemaia asked, her grin widening.

            “Whenever we stay at his place.”

            Mariemaia’s look was fiendish now.

            Une’s look had gotten more appraising.  “We’ve never had a guest at our monthly dinner before,” she said.  “Your relationship must be progressing well for Heero to invite you.”

            “Yeah, things are good,” Duo said nonchalantly.

            “So good you’re staying over his place?” Mariemaia murmured, waggling her eyebrows at me.

             ‘Shut up,’ I mouthed at her.

            She made a kissy face.

            “So good we’re buying curtains together,” Duo said, flashing me a dopey grin.

            It was really cute and caused me to momentarily forget my embarrassment.

            “Well, Heero certainly hasn’t been keeping us updated on that front,” Une said, cutting her meat with silent accuracy.

            “Heero, are you ashamed to tell your family about me?” Duo gasped in mock horror.

            I frowned at him.

            “While Heero has not kept me abreast of things, Mariemaia has offered me an abundance of intel,” Une said, setting down her water glass on the table with a rumble.

            “You make that sound worrying,” Duo said, still smiling easily.

            “Do you have anything to be worried about, Maxwell?” she asked.

            “Shit, I dunno,” he said with a little laugh.  He turned to Mariemaia.  “What’ve you been telling the commander here?”

            “You know, about what a jerk you are,” she said.

            “I thought we were friends now,” Duo said, aghast.

            “I may have also mentioned how you helped me pass my mechanics exam, and how you make my stupid robot brother smile like an idiot all the time,” she said, grinning.

            I kicked her under the table.

            It wasn’t hard, and she looked like she was about to burst out laughing.

            I tried to glare her into submission.

            Duo took my hand and kissed the back of it.  “An idiot, you say?”

            I fidgeted my hand away from him.  We weren’t ready for public displays of affection yet.  Well, I wasn’t.  After months of dating, the Duo who I thought looked down on me and was embarrassed to be with me was nowhere to be found.  Meanwhile I was the one always keeping him at a distance.

            The only reason I’d invited him to family dinner night was because we needed to talk to Une.

            Mari and Duo seemed to be having a grand time, anyway.

            At my expense.

            Une was her usual calculating self, reading underneath the underneath in the guise of eating her dinner.

            When everyone was finished eating, I took the dishes to the kitchen, glad for an escape.

            Une joined me, taking the dish towel and looking imperious about it.

            I handed her a wet plate and she dried it.

            “Yuy,” she said.

            My eyes flicked up to hers.

            “Are you satisfied with your work?”

            I turned back to the pot I was washing.  “Yes.”

            “Po said that she tried offering you an agent position again.”

            There was a sharp burst of laughter from the living room.

            “Yes, and I turned her down again,” I said.  “For the third time.”

            “I know that’s not what you want,” she said.  “But… are you sure you don’t want something different?”

            “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

            “Has Maxwell?”

            I shook my head.

            “He and I agreed, you know,” she said, putting down the towel.  “He would stay with the Preventers until his thirtieth birthday.”

            “I am aware.”

            “Is that why you’ve finally allowed me to properly meet your boyfriend?”

            “W-what?” I stuttered, almost dropping the plate I was washing.

            “I assume Maxwell has made some kind of decision and wishes to discuss it with me,” Une said, unperturbed by my sudden twitchiness.  “You know, Heero, I don’t mind Maxwell,” she continued, pouring herself another glass of wine.  She was never one for finishing household chores.  “He suits you in certain ways.  He was a little rough around the edges when he started working for us, but I think you’ve smoothed him out.”

            “Okay…” I said.

            There was a crash in the living room, but I didn’t want to think about what was being destroyed out there.  Mari’s laughter suddenly pealed through the apartment.

            “I want him to stay,” she said.  “I want you both to stay.  You’re two of my best.  If other arrangements need to be made, then we will make them.”

            “I would never just leave,” I said, though I still felt guilt creeping in.

            “I know that,” she said, her look downright affectionate.

            I flushed.

            “Need help?” Duo asked, showing off his uncanny ability to offer help with the housework when it was already finished.

            “No.”

            “Sorry,” he said, grinning and looping his arms around my waist while I tried to wash the last pot.

            “You’re not sorry,” I said, shrugging him off.  “And what the hell did you break?”

            “Okay, first of all, _I_ didn’t break anything,” Duo complained.  “Second of all, Mari may or may not have knocked over your gunpla shelf.”

            “You’re lying,” I said, rolling my eyes.  No way he would have shown his face in the kitchen if that was true.

            “Couldn’t you have pretended to believe me for a second?”

            “Hey, where’s dessert?” Mari asked, sitting at the counter next to Une.

            “There’s ice cream in the freezer,” I said.

            “Ice cream?!” she asked, delighted.

            “I wonder who did the shopping for tonight?” Duo hummed, pulling down some bowls from the cabinet like he lived here.

            “Did you know that Heero had me convinced that carrots were a dessert when I was younger?” Mari said, digging the scoop into the ice cream.

            Duo snorted.

            “Carrots are a healthy snack with sufficient taste,” I said, flicking Mari on the back of the head.

            She made a face at me.

            “Sufficient taste,” Duo snickered.

            I let him squeeze my hand without pulling away, because I was starting to feel comfortable with the situation.

            Une was looking away from us, but I caught her small smile.

            “Here, Mom,” Mari said, passing Une a bowl.  “Heero, are you gonna eat any?”

            “A small scoop,” I said.

            “You’re gonna get fat,” Duo teased, poking me in the stomach.  “Your body isn’t used to all these saturated fats.”

            “You’ll definitely get fat before me,” I said, accepting my small scoop while Duo dug into his overflowing bowl.

            “I do expect my agents to take care of themselves,” Une commented, looking Duo up and down.

            “I take excellent care of myself,” Duo protested.

            “Hm,” Une said, making eating ice cream look like a regal act.

            The room settled into a quiet, contented hum of ice cream eating.

            It didn’t taste bad.

            “Mari, can you clean up in here for me?” I asked, after she and Duo had finished their seconds and thirds.

            “How long did you want me to clean up for?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

            There wasn’t really a need to be subtle since apparently everyone already knew what was going on.

            “Until we’re finished,” Duo said, tugging on her ponytail.  “Commander, can we talk?”

            “Do you ever stop talking?” Une asked, standing up and striding over to the living room.

            “Did she just burn me?” Duo demanded.

            “She does that,” Mariemaia said with a grin, dumping the bowls in the sink.  She then sat back down at the counter, phone out and typing furiously.  She’d been doing that a lot lately.

            “I’m a nice guy, why does everyone have to take cheap shots at me?” Duo muttered.

            “You’re not that nice,” I said, nudging him towards the living room.

            “I’m moderately nice.”

            “I can agree with that assessment.”

            “Thank you, robot boyfriend, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

            Une was waiting on the couch.

            I took the chair kitty-corner to the couch, and Duo sat on the arm of my chair.

            “So you’ve decided?” Une asked abruptly.  She liked things to get to the point.

            “Well, I signed the three year contract and it’s about to expire,” Duo said.

            “We need you in the Preventers.  This whole business with the mobile suit factories still isn’t sorted.”

            “Well, yeah, so I was thinking…”

            Une waited.

            “I can’t work in that office anymore,” he said, shaking his head.  “It’s just not me.”

            “And here I thought I’d finally tamed the wild beast.”

            “Me?  I’m the wild beast?” Duo asked incredulously.

            “You’re the only gundam pilot who had to be dragged into the Preventers kicking and screaming.”

            “It wasn’t so much screaming as yelling.  Manly yelling.”

            “Maxwell.  What is it that you want to do?”

            Duo looked at me.

            I nodded.

            “We want a vacation is what we want,” he said, grinning.

            Une looked at Duo measuringly.  “You have the standard twenty-two vacation days,” she said.  She knew that wasn’t what he meant.

            “Yeaaah, we’re thinking a year.”

            “You keep saying ‘we’,” she added, casting a glance towards me.

            I nodded gruffly.  “We.”

            “Both of you?  For a year?” she confirmed.  She sounded weary.

            “We both need it,” Duo said.

            “And then?”

            “And then we don’t know.”

            “Christ on a stick,” Une muttered, massaging her temple.

            Duo gave me a wide-eyed look.

            I ignored him.  “I will always be a scientist, and I will always be willing to help the Preventers when I’m needed.  I just need to… understand myself better.  The people I killed because of this-” I started and stopped.  It still weighed on me.  “I think it would be easier for you, anyway.  You could call it a disciplinary leave, and then the ESUNBI might back off.”

            Duo and I may have been exonerated for our felony gundam piloting, but that didn’t mean that the ESUNBI was happy to have two alleged terrorists working in their building.  At least there had been no video of Trowa destroying mobile suit factories, so he’d been able to keep his good name.

            “I don’t give a fuck about the ESUNBI,” Une said blandly.  “What do you two plan to do on this _vacation_ of yours?”  She made it sound like a dirty word.

            “Heero wants to look at boring monuments and crap,” Duo explained.  “I was thinking we might do, you know, actual fun stuff.”

            “How _legal_ would all this _fun stuff_ be?”

            “Uh, well, fairly legal, I’d say.”

            Une sighed.  “Are you going to come back?”

            “Maybe.  We don’t know what we’re going to find, ya know?  We might become shuttle pilots, or open a detective agency, or become dog walkers.  Who knows?”

            “We’re not going to be dog walkers,” I stated flatly.

            “You like animals.  It could be fun, you never know.”

            “I know.”

            “The point is, that there are endless possibilities, and we just hafta try them out to see what fits.”

            “And when I need you?” Une asked.

            “You know we always show up when the world’s about to end,” Duo said with a grin.  “But I think you’ve got shit under control right now, ya know?  Did you see how we cleaned up the Brotherhood?”

            “There are still members at large.”

            “Yeah, but we crippled them.  Come on.  Heero defeated a motherfucking tank.”

            Une laughed at that, a sudden bark that ended as abruptly as it began.  “You’ve already decided then?”

            “Yeah, well ya see, I kinda already sold my place,” Duo said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “And I bought a ship, and ya know, we started getting it ready and all, so…”

            “When do you leave?”

            “The day my contract’s up.”

            “That’s next month.”

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            “Yuy?”

            “I’d like to put in my two weeks’ notice,” I said.  “Well, it will be my three weeks and six day’s notice.”

            “Does that mean I’m in charge of the lab?” Mariemaia called from the kitchen.

            “An intern would not be in charge of the lab,” I said, shaking my head.

            “What, are you going to leave Quatre in charge?!”

            “Maybe I haven’t thought this through…”

            “We’ll work it out,” Une said, standing up and walking briskly over to us.  “Maxwell,” she said, shaking his hand.  “Yuy,” she said, shaking mine.

            Duo and I stood in the doorway and watched as Une and Mariemaia headed out.

            “This is still what you want, right?” Duo said, studying my expression.

            “This is the only real life I’ve ever known.”

            Duo kissed my forehead, pulling me back into the apartment.  “You can join me later, you know.”

            I shook my head.  “We just need to go, make a clean break.  Otherwise I’ll never do it.”

            We’d talked about it and talked about it, and here we were talking about it more.

            I was tired of talking about it.

            “It was nice of Maia to pretend to do the dishes for us,” Duo said as we passed the kitchen.

            I started to move towards the sink, but Duo dragged me towards my room.

            I let him.

            When we were alone, it was easy to be together.

            Duo started pulling the bedding down from the closet.

            “You don’t have to sleep on the couch,” I offered, barely blushing.

            He smiled at that, but carried the bedding out to the couch anyway.  “You said you wanted to be at the office early to start wrapping everything up.”

            “Did I?” I said, suddenly very distracted by Duo bending over to tuck in the sheets.

            “Yes, Heero, you did, and we both know that neither of us is going to get any decent sleep if I stay with you.”

            “I don’t mind,” I said, hugging him from behind.

            “Ha.”

            “Don’t ‘ha’ at me.”

            “Ha ha.”

            I spun him around, leveling him with a good glare.

            “Ha,” he repeated again.

            I pulled him closer, and Duo dropped his forehead to mine.  “Don’t test me,” I said, but it wasn’t a very good threat.

            “Mm-hm,” Duo hummed.  “Wanna get freaky?”

            I stared at him.

            “I’m sorry, was that not the appropriate way to ask for sex?” he asked, his grin unapologetic.

            “No, it was not,” I said.  I let my hand slide down to Duo’s butt.  I liked his butt.  I liked his body.  I liked touching his body.

            I liked him.

            We were naked before we got back to my room.

            It wasn’t embarrassing anymore.

            I watched Duo move over me, his eyes fixed on mine.

            I held onto him tightly.

            It was always like an explosion.

            Duo lingered in bed with me.

            I kissed his fingertips, eyelids growing heavy.

            His breath was warm against my neck.

            I felt safe and content.

            Then I jerked awake as Duo started thrashing around.

            I sighed.  I had definitely been lying when I said I didn’t mind if he stayed.  He was a completely restless sleeper, and I was hypersensitive to any noise and movement while I slept.

            He started, sitting up abruptly.  “Ugh, what time is it?”

            “One thirty-seven.”

            “This always happens,” he murmured, leaning down and smooching my nose.  “I’m going to the couch.”

            “Stay,” I said, catching his arm.  I meant it.

            “No way, I’m not dealing with grumpy Yuy in the morning,” he said, but he hesitated.

            I took his hand, squeezing it to my chest.

            “Good night, Romeo,” he said, slipping away.

            I didn’t get the reference.


	25. Chapter 25

            “What are you doing here?!” Mariemaia demanded, and not in a happy way.

            “We came to visit,” I said cheerfully.

            “I thought you were on earth,” Quatre said.  He scratched his chin, studying us both.

            “What kind of loser comes to work during his vacation?” Mari tsked.  She went back to examining her dead body.

            “Wow, I’m so glad we flew all the way here to see you ungrateful jerks,” I said.  “Let’s just go, Heero.”

            Heero ignored me and started peering at the body.  “Did you examine the fracturing on the right humerus?”

            “Of course,” Mariemaia said, shaking her head.

            “Are you that starved to be looking at dead bodies?” I muttered.  “It’s been what?  A whole three months?”

            “I like dead bodies,” Heero protested.

            I gawked at him.

            He didn’t notice, because he was too busy looking at the dead body.

            “You look… tan,” Quatre observed.

            “We receive a lot of direct sunlight on earth,” Heero offered, despite being completely engrossed in what he was doing.

            “We learned how to surf,” I put in.

            Quatre smiled at that.  “Really?”

            “Yeah, we spent a lot of time in Australia.”

            “Well, I gathered that from the pictures you were sending,” he said.  “Heero was too cute with all those animals.”

            “I know, right?” I gushed.  Heero really was too cute.

            “I’m not cute,” the man himself growled, then went back to arguing with Mariemaia about science crap.

            “So you’re really just here to visit?”

            I glanced at Heero.  “Weirdly, yeah.”  I left out the bit about Heero being homesick to see Mariemaia and his stupid hamsters.  Quatre probably understood with his creepy space heart.

            “Decided what you’re going to do with the rest of your life yet?”

            “Right now, I’m leaning towards beach bum slash cargo pilot.”

            “I can see that.”

            My eyes fixed on Heero.  He looked completely at ease.

            “That’s not going to work for him, though, is it?” Quatre said, giving me a knowing look.

            “His home is here,” I said with a little shrug.

            “And your home is with him.”

            I was physically repelled by that statement.  “Why do you have to say things like that?!”

            “Because they’re true?”

            “Ughhh,” I groaned.

            “I’ve been saying it since the war,” he said, looking pleased with himself.

            “You have not,” I protested.

            “There was always something inevitable about you two.”

            “Uh, more like we are the most unlikely office romance ever.”

            “Can you two girl-talk more quietly?” Heero complained, glaring at us over the top of his glasses.

            I flipped him off, which Heero just sniffed at before turning his attention back to Mariemaia.

            “Why don’t we go upstairs and get some coffee, since I am clearly not needed here anymore,” Quatre suggested, watching as Heero completely took over his job.

            “Yeah, why wouldn’t I rather drink terrible coffee than be here,” I agreed.

            We headed up the elevator.

            “Are you two okay?” Quatre asked, but he didn’t sound worried.

            “Yeah, we’re good,” I said.  “We have a lot of… communication issues, but… we’re happy.”

            “You look happy,” he agreed.

            “Is it my gorgeous sun-kissed skin?”

            “Well, that just looks cancerous to me.”

            “God, you sound like Heero sometimes.”

            “Do I?” Quatre asked, sounding oddly pleased.

            “I’m going to start calling you Instructor Q,” I muttered.

            “I like doctor better.”

            “Dr. Q it is.”

            Wufei looked so annoyed to see me that I wrapped him in a hug.

            Everyone else was out of the office, so it was kind of lonely.  I almost wanted to alphabetize the storage room for old time’s sake.  I was incredibly bored waiting for Heero, who decided to stay until the end of the working day despite being not an employee.

            We headed to Mariemaia’s place after that, which was really Heero’s place.  She was housesitting for him while we were gone.  The hamsters wriggled their noses at us, and Heero seemed to take some kind of freakish delight in handing them sunflower seeds.

            Okay, they were cute.  But it was mostly cuteness by proximity to Heero.

            “You’re not tired of him yet?” Mariemaia asked me while Heero washed the dishes.  She made it sound like a joke, but it wasn’t.

            “He drives me insane,” I answered honestly.

            She eyed me.

            “I like being driven insane?”

            She cracked a smile.

            “I can hear you,” Heero growled over the sound of running water.

            “Of course you can, you mutant freak,” I muttered.

            He raised up his middle finger without turning to look at me.

            I cracked up.

            Mariemaia just stared at his back incredulously.  “You are a bad influence, Duo,” she finally concluded.

            “He needs to express his aggression instead of bottling it up all the time,” I said, waving away her worries.

            “I guess so…” Mariemaia said.  She wrinkled her nose.  “I feel like I’m looking at a stranger.”

            Heero turned around sharply at that, a slight crease in his brow.

             “I love ya, big bro,” she said, blowing him a kiss.

            Heero looked disgruntled but appeased when he went back to washing the dishes.

            “Hey, so he started doing mixed martial arts fighting!” I announced.

            Mari went back to looking incredulous.

            Heero and I walked back to the ship with our fingers twined.

            He almost didn’t mind PDAs at all anymore.  I still had to respect his ‘stop kissing me in public or I will knock you unconscious’ request, though.

            I couldn’t help that I liked kissing Heero Yuy.  I just needed to learn some self-control.

            Kissing in the ship was fine, though.

            “Do you really want to stay here for a whole two weeks?” I said, suddenly pulling away from him.

            “Yes?” he said, his eyes asking me why we weren’t kissing anymore.

            I gave him a peck, which quickly turned into a French, which quickly led to the bed.  “Hey, wait, but seriously.”

            Heero stared at me.

            “What the hell am I supposed to do while you’re playing scientist in your lab?” I complained.

            “Get a life?” Heero suggested.  He got so much sassier when I was keeping him from what he wanted.

            “Well, I’d love to, but Tro and Hil are on L3, so…”

            “You only have two friends?”

            “I only have two friends that I want to spend time with.”

            Heero studied my face, sorting through the teasing and the joking to find the truth.  “Why don’t you take the ship and stay on L3 until I’m finished?”

            We’d been together so much lately that I’d forgotten that we could actually be in separate places.  “Yeah?”

            Heero nodded, playing with the hem of my t-shirt.

            “Yeah?” I repeated, getting him to meet my gaze.

            “I’ll miss you,” he said in a clipped monotone.

            “I’ll miss you too, robot boyfriend,” I said, nipping his nose.

            Heero scrunched his nose up, trying to protect it from my assault.  The corners of his eyes crinkled in the faintest smile.

            He still had a terrible smile, but I loved it.

            “Okay, I’ll head over to L3,” I said, letting him pull my shirt over my head.  “Give me something to remember you by.”

            He stared at me like I was an idiot.

            I took that as an open invitation to take off his pants.

            For all our bickering, I thought we were very compatible in the bedroom.

            Heero was still figuring things out, but he approached every sexual act like doctorate coursework that needed to be studied constantly and practiced thoroughly.  I didn’t mind being his test subject.

            “That is very nice,” I encouraged him, running my fingers through his hair while his head moved between my legs.  “Very, very nice, top of the class.”

            He glared at me.

            I pulled his hair a little.

            He growled.

            I dropped my head back, deciding that my life was pretty great at the moment.

            “Duo?”

            “Mm?” I murmured, feeling very sated and relaxed.

            Heero wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and came up off of the floor, settling his knees around my legs.  “I would like to penetrate you.”

            I couldn’t help but laugh at his serious expression.

            He frowned.

            “I would enjoy being penetrated by you very much,” I offered.

            He studied my face, and when I had gotten my amusement under control, he nodded.  He was starting to understand that I didn’t mean to make fun of him, that I laughed when I was happy.

            And he made me very happy.

            He was such a cutie pie when he topped, with his serious blue eyes focused completely on mine, trying to read my every need to know how to better give me pleasure.

            “Mm, like that,” I encouraged, directing him where to go.

            He was like a very serious puppy sometimes.  It made my heart ache, made me want to make stupid declarations that I couldn’t take back.

            Instead I just held onto his hips very tightly and showed him what to do to make me unravel.

            Big things came in small packages.

            We cleaned up and got ready for bed, standing in front of the tiny bathroom mirror together while we brushed our teeth.

            “We haven’t been away from one another for more than a few hours in months,” I observed through my toothpaste-filled mouth.  “Are you sure you can survive being separated from me, your one true love?”

            “I’ll try,” Heero said, spitting into the sink.

            “You sound real broken up about it.”

            “It will be an adjustment.”

            “An adjustment…”

            “But we’re separate people, living separate lives.”

            “I see.”

            His eyes caught mine in the mirror.  “It’s strange how… you’ve become so much a part of me, and yet… just last year we barely spoke.”

            “Pretty crazy,” I agreed, pressing my cheek to his as I hugged him from behind.

            We looked at our reflections together.

            “Two weeks is a long time,” I hummed.

            “It’s actually a significantly short period of time in the scheme of a human being’s life.”

            I groaned.

            Heero smiled his threatening, terrifying smile.

            I kissed his cute cheek.  I was so smitten with this bizarre man.

            “Mariemaia said that I’d… changed since we left.”

            “Yeah, kinda,” I agreed.

            “She said you changed, too.”

            “Whaaaat?”

            Heero shook his head at me.

            “I’m always the same old me,” I protested.  “Speaking of which, how about we have one more little sendoff before bed?” I suggested, rolling my hips into his very cute butt.

            “We just got washed up,” Heero said.  He wasn’t protesting so much as stating a fact.

            “We can get washed up again,” I said cheerfully.  “Whaddya say?  A little in-n-out for the road?”

            “You’re ridiculous,” he informed me, already moving back towards the bed.

            “That’s my middle name!” I declared, throwing my boxers on the floor.

            “You don’t have a middle name,” Heero responded automatically, already stripped naked with his clothes neatly folded on the dresser.

            I admired his efficiency.

            As much of a cutie pie as Heero was when he topped, he was downright _adorable_ when he bottomed.

            Heero Yuy was _versatile_.

            “Duo…” he murmured, touching my face, holding my hand, kissing me anywhere he could.

            Goddamn if I didn’t always come first.

            I held onto him for as long as I could before he rolled over to his side of the bed.

            The next morning we had an anticlimactic goodbye.

            “Bye,” Heero said, swinging his bag over his shoulder and leaving.

            “Hey!” I protested, chasing him into the shipyard in just my boxers.

            “Is something the matter?”

            I stared at him.

            He stared back.  Then he turned abruptly on his heel and continued leaving.

            I caught his arm, and I felt the tension in it, knew that he had let me do it but hadn’t wanted to.  “Give me a proper goodbye, Yuy!” I demanded, whirling him around.

            He looked sad.

            Of course, he wouldn’t look sad to a normal person.  There was just this slight extra frowniness to his frown.

            “See you soon,” I said, giving him a smooch.

            “Soon,” he agreed, squeezing my hand and quickly walking away.

            We didn’t know what we were going to do.  We talked about opening a bounty hunting office.  We talked about Heero becoming an agent.  We talked about me being a housewife.  We even talked about working for the Preventers part-time while running a bakery on the side.  I don’t know why, because neither of us baked.  We talked about just being together, sitting in my ship and looking at all the stars in the distance, and that was all we needed.

            I had no idea what the fuck I was doing with my life, and that was okay.

            For now I was going to visit my two best friends while they hunted down illegal aircraft operators on L3.  Then I would go back to L1 and pick up my robot boyfriend, we’d blast off into space together, and maybe we’d even live happily ever after, whatever that meant.

            I wanted to find out.


End file.
